What Do You Have to Lose?
Elisabeth Howland

 

 

Dear friend,

What do you have to lose?

Some days I say I have nothing
To lose
(If I give it all
Away);
Other days I make lists
And write letters.
Think about people,
Numbers lost,
Successive cell phones.
My favorite red sweater
(Never made it from
Point A
To point B).

Some days I picture her sitting,
Crumpled
Sheets and features aged
Too young.
She has a photograph
Of her daughter;
Clutching reflection,
Innocence
Inebriated.
Cigarettes and memories,
Smoke and mirrors,
She sat,
With herself.

What do you have to lose?

He wasn’t listening, turned his back.
It’s me,
She said softly, me.
Mirror,
She asks, what have you to
Lose? Your father,
Perhaps, the one you
Never had.
Or your child, laughing,
(The one you never had)
Mirror, mirror on
The wall,
Are you lost?

Fires were coming, she had to leave;
She knew
There was much to lose.
They said
She had to make choices;
What would she choose?
Love letters, jewelry,
Recipes;
Journals, photographs,
A sun-lit afternoon.
Shooting star moments
Left behind,
Turned to dust.

What do you have to lose?

 

 

the successful failure

she intends to tell a story.
the captivating nostalgia of history,
familiar front-page characters.
crepuscule context of what’s about to come.

there is a question: what do you have to lose?

finding an answer seems essentially beside the point
but an answer feels solid;
convicted in the conversation,
she is glad of its security.

answer upon answer floods question unexpected.
her voice wanes
beneath the din.

she begins to listen.
closed eyes and minds open to
denial, cacophonic adrenaline
wide-eyed climax.

…

she intended to tell a story,
but she forgot that stories tell themselves.

her story, a deep-fried book,
vacuumed sealed for posterity,
forever mute.

 

 

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