Perie Longo

Lost

…thoughts of a person in age
sometimes grow sparer.
                               —Jane Hirshfield

When I take to dashing away
from my computer’s texts and demands,
especially finding those codes to prove I’m me,

I get lost, even in my own city where I’ve lived over
half a century. I pay no attention to street names,
so never ask for directions. Besides,

I’m geographically challenged. Ask anyone
who knows me. They’ll say, “Her? Oh,
who knows where she is.”

Now we’re talking about this, I find myself drifting
through a forest of thoughts with quivering leaves
leaving myself on the side of a road asking

                                  Where was I?
                                  Am I
so different now than the person who left
the house?
          Not long ago a deer slid from a thicket of oaks
and stared at me. Feeling chosen

I sweet-talked about her sleek skin,
her beautiful eyes and peaceful countenance
unlike mine. If I moved a step, she did.

Back and forth in this metaphysical dance
it seemed we had something in common.
                          Yet when I took an extra breath

she ran across the road where I stood
          barely missing me, stopped

          in my tracks, if it was me—or only a shadow
          of myself which reminds me of a dream

I thought real. A large shadow took over my room one night,
all gray mist—an intruder? I panicked, attacked it
with a boxer-like punch, throwing myself forward,
my arm like a no-entrance bar, fist into air,

          then thought maybe of my dear Grandma lost
years ago. “Is that really you?” I asked,
holding her tight, arms around myself.

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Perie Longo, Poet Laureate emerita of Santa Barbara, California (2007-2009), has published four books of poetry: Milking The Earth (1986), The Privacy Of Wind (1987), With Nothing Behind But Sky: a journey through grief (2006) and Baggage Claim (2014). Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Atlanta Review, Connecticut Review, International Poetry Review, Nimrod, Paterson Literary Review, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, and Solo. She has taught poetry for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference annually since 1984, California-Poets-in-the-Schools, and privately. As a psychotherapist, she integrates poetry for healing and in 2005 was invited to speak on that subject at Kuwait University.