Today's poem is by Emma Wynn

Things We Lost to the Flood
       

Alternate uses for pencils,
their flat shafts reeling in the tissue-thin
black tentacles of mix tapes.
The mix tape. Frilled notebook-paper messages
passed forward in Health class,
"i's" dotted with hearts like
slips of light in our pockets. Then washed
to pulp in our jeans, little white pebbles
we could hold in our palms.

Consulting oracles — older brothers
who knew the first names of drummers
and where to buy that beer
that tasted of rye, the smart route
to Philadelphia. Rarely knowing where we were
or how long it would take to get there,
maps like sails flapping dangerously.
How easy it was to wash up on strange shores,
wander into strange bars
into local disputes over the way home.

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Copyright © 2023 Emma Wynn All rights reserved
from Poetry South
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission