No Trace by Jessica L. Walsh

No Trace

The body itself likely took flight
from a seaside cliff
and burst in the waves to sudden pieces
each turning into a deep water reef in the ever dark
where the rare beasts circle
led by the lantern fishes
in the funeral procession of the lost

I would have it this way

In my book the gone go undisturbed
. . . . . . . .safe from detectors maps revolutions

asleep among coelacanths
snakeheads and swallowers
among colossals goblins and megamouths
. . . . . . . .all the homely warted mermaids
. . . . . . . .who roam hairless and saggy
. . . . . . . .a mile below our garbage islands

The ocean’s deformed will welcome my wreck
. . . . . . . .the way the rejects take the new fat kid
. . . . . . . .to their table at the edge of the cafeteria

I will speak for missing
in spite of a cry for closure
. . .which is its own lost ship
sighted and gone
without a trace

Don’t worm your way
. . . . . . . .past these bad miracles
. . . . . . . .which are after all
. . . . . . . .the only miracles I have

Let me sleep the day away
. . . . . . . .knowing I can vanish
. . . . . . . .and join the ugly silent second line
. . . . . . . .at any hour

I do herein bequeath the unsolved

by Jessica L. Walsh

Editor’s Note: This poem reads like a prayer wherein the narrator asserts the right to be and pass away in truth instead of in falsehood. It is a statement about how we as a society treat our “deformed.”