Gone
Gone
is Lord Nelson's arm
and gone is the head of Sir Walter Raleigh
which his wife used to carry around in a satchel.
Gone
is my hair
and the whole of Amelia Earhart
in the wash of her silver propeller.
And
now you are gone,
gone out the door with a suitcase
and over the hill in your car.
You
and Homer's eyesight.
You and the children of Hamlin.
Gone like a coin through a grate
or
Byron's journals.
Real gone like bebop.
The gone that leaves a zero in the here.
All
gone, as we say to children.
All gone,
holding up our empty hands.
--Billy
Collins
Copyright © 1997 by Free Lunch Arts Alliance
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