I never met you.
In the first picture I saw of you,
you were wearing a pink shirt and a shy smile
and the word, "Missing," was at the bottom,
in the white border.
Watching the news, later on,
when I saw the rushing flood water,
I felt the weight of the mud,
of a whole archipelago
dragging my heart to the bottom
of a restless river.
In my mind, my arms, my hands stretched,
sifted, held on tightly
to the edge of your shirt,
wanting to hold on
to something.
No, you will not be
forgotten the way the internet
buries yesterday's news
in a sea of status updates.
When we said grace
last night, my son,
your cousin, whom you never
met, said, "Mommy, let's pray
for her," with the urgency
of someone who will not
accept that life ends,
that your smile would
ever dim.
When I hold my children's hands,
I hold your hands too.
For my niece, Mica Samson, missing since the wake of Typhoon Sendong, Dec. 18, 2011.
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