Freewrite about absence, absenteeism, or absent things.
Start with real, ordinary absences, both abstract and concrete, then progressively larger absences, each growing in size and scope, even to the point of hyperbole, until you find an absence that feels larger than all other absences, larger than the world, larger than the universe.
Poems for Inspiration:
At a Christmas party, my sister left behind her baby blanket.
We turned around and drove back through the snowy roads.
My parents kept reminding her they would never forget.
A small square stained with spit and mashed peas; it was no trinket,
and my grandma, the party’s host, already tossed it in the garbage load.
At a Christmas party, my sister left behind her baby blanket.
If she were older perhaps she would have felt no regret.
Perhaps she would have found another to save herself from the cold.
My parents kept reminding her they would never forget
the gift from our aunt who’s now alone in a pinewood casket
and wrapped in her own blanket of roots, worms, and mold.
She missed that Christmas party my sister left behind her baby blanket.
On her last days, we brought my aunt flowers and unripened fruit in a basket.
We said we loved her and all the other things she needed to be told.
My parents kept reminding her they would never forget.
I write these refrains, and think how my aunt and sister never met,
about how their hands will never get the chance to hold
at a Christmas party, how my poor sister left behind her baby blanket,
and how my parents kept reminding her they would never forget.
—
Alejandro Lucero is a writer from Sapello, New Mexico by way of Denver. He serves as an intern and poetry reader for Copper Nickel. Pushcart Prize nominee, his most recent poetry and nonfiction can be found in Progenitor Art & Literary Journal and is forthcoming in The Susquehanna Review and Thin Air Magazine.
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