What we've lost

and so much was lost with her, the brothers gone to war, and the husband who returned. the last time I saw jesus, I was only months outside the womb, and the tale-tell signs of ignorance were already accruing: cheap television, bill-paying, yearning, yearning for congratulations. so much was lost: the dobermans and chicks, the broken Model T, the notes passed in the hollow space discovered by the 8 or 9-year-old she was, within her favorite tree, the monthly passing, dancing at the station and the untold things. The things she didn't share. and I am like an insurance agent, cataloguing what we've lost, the evidence of which is only incomplete receipts and evanescing bills of sale.