The Lure of the Unfinished
for Elise Cowen
by Amy Gerstler
intercepted mid brush stroke
those who die young or trun-
cated loom still wet with potential
those who elude us who fled into death
their echoes gnaw at our future
and we the abandoned
remain unfinished too
friends/lovers/ interrupted
mid gesture or caress
given the slip
by loves gone to fossil or scholars' fodder
or life-size paper dolls we chase through dreams
we cast them in roles they never auditioned for
blurred wrecks at rest on the sea floor
fish flit through their dissipating hulls
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sentiment clouds the water
their incompleteness = infinite possibility
how ravenously I wish her back
during nights spent struggling
(without success) to decipher
her handwriting—
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This is a recent poem, sparked by reading the work of Elise Cowen, a female Beat poet whose small but intriguing body of work was a revelation. She died at 28, so I was left wanting more, troubled by regret about those who die young, wishing it could have been different. My excitement about her work was inextricable from an elegiac feeling. I'm fond of the poem because it's a document in which I try to contemplate and honor the effect her work had on me, and my sadness re: lives cut short.
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AMY GERSTLER has published ten books of poetry and received a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Los Angeles. www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amy-gerstler