The Vanishing Point of Departure

when a plane vanishes with over 200 people
when there’s no proof of mechanical failure or a terrorist hijacking
when every lead leads into a black hole
it drives people crazy: they trek to the edge of that better place
to another planet, anywhere to locate them even accuse Martians
whose existence they’ve always doubted
of an alien abduction because
people can’t just vanish

but they have and the plane is still missing as is the husband who vanished
while his wife, the writer, fixing drinks in the other room
was still talking to him

I use third person backing off from myself
but sometime before he knew, said that when someone dies
it’s like a light that goes out, we throw away the bulb
I am still forcing that bulb to shine
doing it right now, forcing out
some light by which to bring him back, save him
and all those others who are waiting to be rescued
on an obscure island where the plane must have crashed
where everyone is waiting for someone to
bring them home…

Linda Lerner’s next collection, Yes, the Ducks Were Real, will be published by NYQ Books in 2015 as was her previous full length collection, Takes Guts and Years Sometimes. A chapbook of poems inspired by nursery rhymes, illustrated by Donna Kerness, Ding Dong the Bell Pussy in the Well was published in Feb. 2014 by Lummox Press. She’s been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. In 1995 she and Andrew Gettler began Poets(http://www.echony.com/~poets) the first poetry anthology on the Net for which she received two grants. She can be heard reading on http://www.poetryvlog.com