Rondeau with African Proverb by Marjorie Thomsen

To get lost is to learn the way—

printed sun-yellow on my apron.

I didn’t tell the man get lost when he said

“Me Too! I’d like to have you in bed.”

He’d been drinking beers in the hottest sun

 

but I listened and listened to how he’s lost

and a little broken about mortality, its cost.

Perhaps stuck at age eleven when his mother died.

To get lost is to learn the way

 

eventually. The man is almost sixty.

Because I’m afraid to make sunchoke soup, my apron’s not gritty

and years ago I played it safe when I should have been alive

in a beloved’s bed getting lost

to learn the way.

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Marjorie Thomsen is the author of Pretty Things Please, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Poems have been read on The Writer’s Almanac and she has received awards from the New England Poetry Club and the University of Iowa. A poem about hiking in high heels is being made into a short animated film. She recently earned certification to become a Poet-in-Residence in the Boston Public Schools.