“Ending Your Story Without a Heart Full of Regrets..” Last Resort 2023

A second trip into your favorite place, my chance to peel away
this layer of you
a year and six months after your passing.
A trip that shows me
what I will never find.
Searching through places
you had been
didn’t surface any of your stickers. The backs of speed number
and deer crossings signs
along Sunrise Highway
now bare and new.
Others covered up by copy cats
who also stickered up the east end. Nowhere displayed you,
your initials, or name anymore. Montauk no longer carries your path glued on its roadside signage.
Like you they disappeared.
My two day hunt saddens me
for your sticker circled graffiti.
This tells me all I need to accept
I can’t stalk your memory
any longer.

MARGARETTE WAHL is a Long Island Poet. She’s a member of Bards Initiative, Nassau County Poet Laureate Society, and Performance Poets Association. Her poems have been published in various anthologies and has four chapbooks with Local Gems Press.