Waking up in India to the News that Mike is Dead
“I will bathe in memory and in loss.”
- Mike James
In the tropical night, I wake, fiddle with my phone, see the news.
You knew it was coming. My last submission. I did not expect it so soon.
I sit under a Banyan tree and study its aerial roots. I cannot remember
what you wrote about trees.
On my laptop, I re-read our chats. I want to download and save them.
As if that could keep you here.
At a deserted playground, monkeys scamper up and down the slide.
They know nothing of poetry.
I copied lines from your poems, carried them as a talisman,
taped them above my desk.
I wonder what you would have packed if you could have taken a suitcase.
I hear the list in your voice.
It sounds as if you are reading one of your prose poems.
About the Author: Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land, The Eden of Perhaps, and A Coracle for Dreams, all published by Spartan Press. Together with eight other poets she collaborated on the book Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Cornerpost Press, 2022.) Her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines; you can read some of them on her website agnesvojta.com.
Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Fort Myers, a small city on Florida’s southwest coast along the Gulf of Mexico calls itself the Palm City but its most iconic leafy specimens are the immense banyan trees downtown” Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 