It was a story of loss,
abandoned memories and lost identity;
the theater was quiet as it ended –
how could one speak of amyloids,
of emptiness, forgotten words
or complex worlds unspooled?
On the street outside were pools
of melted snow reflecting green,
then red as the light changed.
According to thermodynamic law
nothing is ever really lost;
Lucretius wrote the same words
centuries before, yet the stories
we tell are always of loss:
a garden, tropical, left behind,
lost trust, lost innocence;
lovers’ missed connections,
one dead, the other desolate;
porridge eaten by a stranger,
glass slipper lost at a ball,
lives stolen by gunshot,
houses bulldozed in despair.
Still the moments afterward
require the most of us:
plodding through dull days,
eyes clouded with tears,
unwilling that life should shift
in an instant. We go on,
blindly fingering uncertainty,
asking always a single question:
How do we navigate from now?