The Loyalhanna Review
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LOST<br />
© by Marge Burke<br />
I stand beside your desk, as you fumble through your planner.<br />
You are lost in tomorrow, knotted with yesterday like a skein of tangled yarn.<br />
<strong>The</strong> pages fade before you as I stand there, helpless to help – feeling as lost as you appear.<br />
Your eyes reflect confusion, frustration…<br />
Your hands tremble, only slightly, as you stumble between the months.<br />
You are suspended there, between the pages of days in your mind.<br />
I gently guide your thoughts back to today, and finally<br />
Your plans make some sense, enough to make notes.<br />
But as you close the planner, your hand lingers. You re-open the book; your notes drift<br />
to the floor.<br />
“What’s this?” you ask, picking them up, and the process<br />
begins again.<br />
You struggle with the questions, words floating free like balloons escaped from a child’s grasp. And I – a master<br />
of words – can find none.<br />
If I could give you the answers, or explain the progression of days, or fasten tight the memories just beyond<br />
your grasp …<br />
If I could put the gleam of humor back in your eyes, the spark of understanding in your smile, the air of<br />
confidence in your life …<br />
If I could stop the relentless march of destruction that has taken you captive …<br />
If I could somehow wield the magic that would restore tomorrow …<br />
But … as I stand beside your desk, you fumble through your planner, and you are lost.<br />
Still.<br />
Again.<br />
Marge Burke, employed at Smail Automotive and Pinnacle Auto Sales, has been<br />
published in local magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Her novel, Letters to<br />
Mary, combining her love of history and research, is based on Civil War family<br />
letters and is currently available at www.margeburke.com.<br />
Old Lady<br />
© by David Adès<br />
— but once she was not old, not bent<br />
or wrinkled or smelling of lavender,<br />
not living alone in a house damp with<br />
faded ardour, dusty with regret of time<br />
misspent. Photographs on the mantelpiece<br />
attest to someone else within her crinkled<br />
skin, someone light and whimsical, and<br />
there are traces still, if you care to look.<br />
And stories that would hold you to your<br />
chair, dousing your restlessness,<br />
those skittering hands and feet, if you<br />
would just open the book. She is kind<br />
and polite – gives you stale cake and<br />
tea – but will not impose her memories,<br />
asks only that you visit now and then<br />
to let her see the future through your eyes —<br />
and catch a passing glimpse of herself<br />
as she was when the future was still hers<br />
to surmise.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Loyalhanna</strong> <strong>Review</strong> 2015 21
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