By R. Bremner
PROMPT — If only ...
I have heard her voice.
I heard it again, as I never
heard it in her lifetime.
I hear her voice at
the strangest times:
at work, during a conference all;
walking the dog on a bright sunny day;
listening to the news being broadcast.
And it is never an infant’s voice,
as I’d expect it to be.
No, it ages through the years.
And it always says the same thing.
Just one word.
“Daddy”.
There is no place to go to
where I can be nearer to her.
They trashed what little remains
there were of her
at the time of the miscarriage
before we knew
that was their standard operating
procedure.
Business as usual.
And I know she is thinking
“why didn’t you save me?”
We meant to mark her birthday
give her a name
but all that’s forgotten now
long dead in the past.
But I’ve given her a name
that no one else knows
so that I can reply
when she calls to her Daddy.
And as she grows into womanhood
I’m so proud of my little girl.
R. Bremner writes of incense, peppermints, and the color of time in such venues as International Poetry Review, Anthem: a Leonard Cohen Tribute Anthology, Jerry Jazz Musician, Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry, The Red Wheelbarrow, and seven books, including Hungry words (Alien Buddha Press), and Absurd (Cajun Mutt Press).