Hello Kitty key-chain
caked in blood, hung on
one rusted nail
the silent shack
silvered wood-grain, locust-buzz . . .
Scattered petals blown by
the dented fan spinning
in the Mississippi sun
withering winter heat
hanging willows over the
bank. Cypresses silhouetted
on the darkening horizon
glacier’s silent witness
while sherpas come and go
seeking her remains
beseeching Buddha
. . . details, details

the little girl she had always been
motionless in the sand of the dry riverbed
the Bedouin poke her cold body
with their staffs
camels quizzically chew cud.
Housewives on Long Island
do their shopping . . .

What did she say
When they stole her lunchbox?
Why were Lunchables™ not enough?

Grief is a sandwich
tossed in a snowdrift,
in the summer of 1941:
Tibetan village of Yarlung Tsangpo;
Inevitability of sun.

PROMPT 18: write an elegy of your own, one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail. This may not be a “fun” prompt, but loss is one of the most universal and human experiences, and some of the world’s most moving art is an effort to understand and deal with it.