Chloe Martinez
In the tenth year, she disappeared.
No warning, the mail uncollected,
the potted plants dying on the front porch
until neighbors rescued them,
phone messages answered with silence.
There were rumors that she had settled
in a rainy climate. Or else near the sea.
Some said she had mastered the art
of zoomorphic calligraphy, and could write
prayers into lions, poems into hawks,
and the ninety-nine names of God
into the shape of the stork that flies
to the Holy Land. That makes pilgrimage.