Friends of ours had just left from a dinner party,
When the phone rang.
It was my mother.
"Lesley is gone!! Was in the bathroom!", she cried,
"And the police are here!"
But I'm used to my mother's hysterics,
And Lesley had run away before.
"Ok Mom.", I quickly replied, "This is what you do:
You give a photo of Lesley to the police,
Declare her as 'missing' so they can find her!"
(Because that's what I did,
When Lesley had run away before.)
By this time my husband Barry,
Hovers nearby, Looking anxiously at me,
Knowing something is terribly wrong.
"NO! You don't understand!",
My mother yells into the phone,
"Lesley is GONE!!"
No words flash through my conscious brain,
There is no time for that,
But way down below inside of me,
A voice cries out: "Gone means DEAD!"
And I burst into tears,
While something else in me slides down, down a sudden slipperly slope,
Into instant oblivion and despair.
"Now, now...none of THAT!", my mother scolds, tense,
Having been forever allergic to emotion,
While I look helplessly at Barry who's expression cries out at me for an answer.
"Lesley", I mouth, while my mother tells me the police will soon visit us,
"Is dead!", and I see my husband's face turn from dread to pain,
And feel myself fighting from going insane.
Helene.
Topic: Gone (Read 2118 times)
