Last week I had a word for it.
That feeling when something goes well,
really well,
and you’re warm and bright inside—
there’s a word—
but it’s gone, stolen, seized in the raid;
the others have it now
in the town across the bay,
not the feeling, but yes the feeling,
and the word.

They came again this week,
with those things in their hands—
metal, sharp,
you hurt people with them,
we have them too,
but not the word—not anymore—
the sounds and the sense
taken back across the bay,
a trophy of their triumph.

Today it was the water—
the big water that divides us—
we’re losing more and more,
more battles, more words,
all gone across the water I can’t name anymore
because it belongs to them now,
the—
what are they—
I had a word for them this morning, I know it—

I don’t know it

—I only know they’ll come back
and I won’t know what they’ve taken.
Just one thing after another
until we have no words left.