Your book has missing pages,
Lolo.
In your younger years,
you showed laxity;
now it is futile to look back.
Recovering lost chapters,
you found some pages
under your pillows,
inside Lola’s baul,
sometimes tucked
in somebody else’s books –
folded, creased, torn with age.
The missing pages
have turned into sorrow
that you attempt to heal
by rewriting your life;
yet they have not returned --
not to your mind,
not even to your hands
that yearned to write
even a few mangled words.
Until night comes –
time to close the book
and lay it on your chest
while rocking yourself to sleep
in the old silyon;
wondering with closed eyes
and twitching lips,
at the absence
of your memory.
