Want Ads
By Marion Paganello
At lunch today, my husband told me about a classified ad
he had seen in the paper last week; so small, that he almost
missed it. The ad was placed by an ex-husband, searching for
any information about his ex-wife.
My husband could not recall their names or the email address
provided, but he wished he had shown it to me, knowing how
it would have appealed to my imagination and my heart.
He was right. The idea of it has moved me to think about how
poignant, wonderful, even redeeming it would be if we could
place ads for all the people, the moments, the opportunities,
the objects which have gone lost or missing.
What would I place an ad for?
I would place an ad for the moment, just before my older brother died.,
when I was told that he reached up, seeing what? something beckoning
and incandescent and he said, “I am ready,” so that I could have been there
with him, instead of his caregiver, while I was on my way uptown in a cab.
Or I would place an ad for the oval, silver, filigreed broach with an iridescent
pearl the size of a lima bean set in the center which my father gave to my
mother on their 16th wedding anniversary, the year she passed away, and
which he gave to me on my 18th birthday. It fell off the vintage dress I had
pinned it to, never to be found. I looked for it everywhere and could never
tell my father that I had lost it.
Or I would place an ad for the best home we ever had, but before the oil
burner caught fire and the kitchen telephone melted and the walls cracked
and the smoke asphyxiated our beloved dog and cat; with the house looking
fine afterwards from the outside, except for the bedraggled, smoke-stained
curtains which the frigid, February wind teased out through all of the broken
bedroom windows.
Or maybe I would not place an ad for any of these lost moments, people or
things: a beloved brother, a treasured brooch, or a house that once felt safe
and then did not; realizing that the past cannot be reclaimed and that all of
this, this life, is what happens to each of us as we are living it.
Marion Paganello is a poet based in New Jersey. She participates in an independent poetry group and workshops and retreats run by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Kevin Carey and the late Laura Boss. Marion continues to write poetry with brave and inspiring poets. Her work has appeared in various editions of The Paterson Literary Review, as well as in LIPS and Molecule. Viva la Poesia!
At lunch today, my husband told me about a classified ad
he had seen in the paper last week; so small, that he almost
missed it. The ad was placed by an ex-husband, searching for
any information about his ex-wife.
My husband could not recall their names or the email address
provided, but he wished he had shown it to me, knowing how
it would have appealed to my imagination and my heart.
He was right. The idea of it has moved me to think about how
poignant, wonderful, even redeeming it would be if we could
place ads for all the people, the moments, the opportunities,
the objects which have gone lost or missing.
What would I place an ad for?
I would place an ad for the moment, just before my older brother died.,
when I was told that he reached up, seeing what? something beckoning
and incandescent and he said, “I am ready,” so that I could have been there
with him, instead of his caregiver, while I was on my way uptown in a cab.
Or I would place an ad for the oval, silver, filigreed broach with an iridescent
pearl the size of a lima bean set in the center which my father gave to my
mother on their 16th wedding anniversary, the year she passed away, and
which he gave to me on my 18th birthday. It fell off the vintage dress I had
pinned it to, never to be found. I looked for it everywhere and could never
tell my father that I had lost it.
Or I would place an ad for the best home we ever had, but before the oil
burner caught fire and the kitchen telephone melted and the walls cracked
and the smoke asphyxiated our beloved dog and cat; with the house looking
fine afterwards from the outside, except for the bedraggled, smoke-stained
curtains which the frigid, February wind teased out through all of the broken
bedroom windows.
Or maybe I would not place an ad for any of these lost moments, people or
things: a beloved brother, a treasured brooch, or a house that once felt safe
and then did not; realizing that the past cannot be reclaimed and that all of
this, this life, is what happens to each of us as we are living it.
Marion Paganello is a poet based in New Jersey. She participates in an independent poetry group and workshops and retreats run by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Kevin Carey and the late Laura Boss. Marion continues to write poetry with brave and inspiring poets. Her work has appeared in various editions of The Paterson Literary Review, as well as in LIPS and Molecule. Viva la Poesia!
Comments