the dark tree, the cold sea
although I know you can never be found
although I know that from the highest height
you cannot be seen you are not hiding
from me or are you is it how you look now
or maybe how I look now all these years gone by
places seen people met not knowing at any time
who I was or how others saw me or did not see me
and how are you wherever you are if I write you a letter
I’ll get no answer if I cry out to you to come in my final
hour you will not come but I will still look for you
Copyright © 2017 by Emily Fragos. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 24, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
“People are curious about the you in ‘the dark tree, the cold sea.’ It need not be a secret. My beloved sister died young of cancer. It is she to whom I am speaking.”
—Emily Fragos
Emily Fragos
Emily Fragos is the author of Cat, Dog, and Bird Songs (Sheep Meadow Press, 2023), cowritten with Stanley Moss, and Hostage: New & Selected Poems (Sheep Meadow Press, 2011).
Fragos teaches at Columbia University and New York University, and lives in New York City.