by Cathy Ulrich
The missing girls’ faces go faded and dull on printouts hung at the grocery store, get buried under weekly bargains and rummage sale signs, tattered concert posters. The missing girls with their dark eyes and serious mouths, like they knew, even at the flash of a camera, they would someday be lost and never found.
Some of the missing girls have mothers who pray like they are writing letters to distant pen pals, dear god, they say, dear god. Some have detectives with the strong jaws of comic-book heroes who say they’ll never give up the search, who speak of puzzles and missing pieces. Some have fathers who cry alone in idling trucks, sisters who flinch at slamming doors, cousins who post their photos to social media again and again, have you seen, have you seen, have you seen.
Some have footprints disappearing under falling snow, some have strap-snapped sandals lying on the side of the road. Some have reporters interviewing their families for anniversary articles, thinkpieces, lost-girl profiles. Some have sweet-faced aunties finding old photos in their purses, look at her, would you? Just look at her smile. Some have the moon behind thimbling clouds.
The square-jawed detectives drink strong, bitter things: coffees, bourbons, coffee with bourbon. They shuffle papers on their desks, untwist their phone cords, gaze at the photographs of their missing girls hung in never forget poses. They say just one more lead and I’ll break this case.
Break it wide open.
The praying mothers have a way of wincing when they hear something that sounds like their daughters’ names, a shudder from the base of their spines to the tips of their heads, something that judders them like an open wound. At night, they close their eyes and think of their daughters’ faces, try to remember their daughters’ faces, try to remember a smile, a laugh, a breathless voice.
The missing girls’ faces don’t change, except in their grocery-store printouts, in the fade and flutter of passing years, going translucent and pale with the days, the days, the days.
Their mothers stand before the photograph displays when they go to the grocery store, shoulders curved, touch the fading faces of their lost daughters. All they feel under their questing fingertips is the soft, smooth fold of threadbare paper. All they feel is something that is gone, gone, so long gone.
Some of the missing girls have mothers who pray like they are writing letters to distant pen pals, dear god, they say, dear god. Some have detectives with the strong jaws of comic-book heroes who say they’ll never give up the search, who speak of puzzles and missing pieces. Some have fathers who cry alone in idling trucks, sisters who flinch at slamming doors, cousins who post their photos to social media again and again, have you seen, have you seen, have you seen.
Some have footprints disappearing under falling snow, some have strap-snapped sandals lying on the side of the road. Some have reporters interviewing their families for anniversary articles, thinkpieces, lost-girl profiles. Some have sweet-faced aunties finding old photos in their purses, look at her, would you? Just look at her smile. Some have the moon behind thimbling clouds.
The square-jawed detectives drink strong, bitter things: coffees, bourbons, coffee with bourbon. They shuffle papers on their desks, untwist their phone cords, gaze at the photographs of their missing girls hung in never forget poses. They say just one more lead and I’ll break this case.
Break it wide open.
The praying mothers have a way of wincing when they hear something that sounds like their daughters’ names, a shudder from the base of their spines to the tips of their heads, something that judders them like an open wound. At night, they close their eyes and think of their daughters’ faces, try to remember their daughters’ faces, try to remember a smile, a laugh, a breathless voice.
The missing girls’ faces don’t change, except in their grocery-store printouts, in the fade and flutter of passing years, going translucent and pale with the days, the days, the days.
Their mothers stand before the photograph displays when they go to the grocery store, shoulders curved, touch the fading faces of their lost daughters. All they feel under their questing fingertips is the soft, smooth fold of threadbare paper. All they feel is something that is gone, gone, so long gone.
Cathy Ulrich’s local grocery store still has a bulletin board with flyers on it. Her work has been published in various journals, including Ghost Parachute, Bluestem and Quarter After Eight.
Emerge Literary Journal 