LOST

One fountain pen,

black for rigor.

Bracelet of emerald and gold

my mother gave me.

Letters I no longer receive

or send.

The name I can't recall

of my first best friend.

Five loves: two dead,

three squandered in anger

or accidents of geography.

Two books of Mother Goose rhymes

I read to my two sons

who have left their rooms

to no purpose.

Two phantom children

and the inland sea that spawned them.

But not, still not

the brother gone at thirty-three

who thrashes to the surface

of untended thoughts.

Changeless, abiding,

my familiar death.

Brigitte Frase is a poet and essayist. She was critic at large for Hungry Mind Review and its successor Ruminator. She reviews for the Star Tribune and Los Angeles Times.