I've known of missing poems before <br />poems stronger than the suppressing hand <br />poems more powerful than the invisibility <br /> <br />poems that speak from the realm of the soul <br />from the place that needs no facade <br />the place unpalpable where the poem touches <br /> <br />a father's unrenderable gaze <br /> <br />absent from the family photograph <br />frozen in clenched smile abstraction <br />hovering somewhere near the unfathomable <br /> <br />a hole where a heart once lay <br /> <br />cached between bone and muscle <br />a conduit for that which makes life livable <br />its beat but an echo its rhythm but a spasm of memory <br /> <br />hurt where a friendship once was <br /> <br />its demise never anticipated <br />its loss never contemplated <br />it measure infinite <br /> <br />space where a leg ought be <br /> <br />the missing limb but bits of flesh femur blood <br />soft shrapnel on a once abandoned war ground <br />the mined soil holding secret its maiming terror <br /> <br />nothing where something ought be <br /> <br />it is said that to which the missing was adjoined <br />the left behind <br />mourns its disattached <br />one sees the shining knee - <br /> the favored other <br /> <br />there is emptiness longing <br />grief is spoken <br /> and desire<br /><br />Sojourner Kincaid Rolle<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-space-where-a-poem-ought-be/
