Saul Bennett
In All The Excitement I Lost My Mind
Always, Mother said. I was to secure
important items in my little knapsack,
to be opened at either destination
but never between home and school.
I've worn the thing in my fashion obeying
Mother's dictum now a good half-century
past grade school, but soon after hearing
my healthy child had -poof! - died
I appear to have (though I've no memory)
lost hold the sack, spilling all I owned
while on my knees denying the numbers
& letters underneath the transparent gauze
window shrouding her stone
about for the first time to be unveiled.