What Remains
Sam Rasnake

           “RIP the one alpaca sock I somehow lost in Iceland.
           I'll miss you, but if we're being honest, you were
           always trying to get away. Long may you roam.”
                      —Chelsea Stickle

Things I’ve lost don’t amount to much is all I’m saying,
though I know you don’t believe me. I can’t help that.
It’s hard enough to believe myself. It’s not the dollar,

it’s the lost idea, the dream, lost ways of seeing the world,
I guess. My Western Flyer bicycle, red and wonderful, but
missing. The PF high tops, 6th grade, I left in gym one day.

When I went back—gone. The perfect book from childhood,
European folktales … I don’t recall the title … complete with
two sets of maps on the inside covers, front and back, maps—

Can you tell what I’m not saying or why I’m not saying it?

—of forests, roads, and travelers, of houses, haunted lakes, and
cliffs. Destroyed in a flood. Photos and LPs lost to a fire. Two
human bones from the burned-out basement of a house

near my cousin’s place—I found—we found—and buried
close to an oak. The next day, we couldn’t find them. Disappeared.
It was just lost evidence I suppose. Sometimes that’s good—

Why am I saying it now? I guess that could be important.

—but not this time. My dog died of cancer. My grandparents and
parents, gone, and all their stories with them. I remember some,
but much of the telling has faded, leaving me with a world of

questions and no one to ask. My first home by the harbor, first
note I passed in school, first secret cave near town—all are lost
to me now. A coin I left on the tracks for the train to smash, then

couldn’t find in the dark. I can still hear the whistle, late at night,
when I should be sleeping. The old fire tower on the knob above
the tree line. Nothing there now, only the hint of a ranger’s road.

I’m not sure what it is I’m not saying. Maybe that’s the point.

Once, I walked it, more trail than road, to meet up with a friend.
I found him. He’d fallen into a nest of yellow jackets. I helped him
home. Years later, I heard he died. We never did keep in touch.

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Sam Rasnake’s Comments

A note online by writer Chelsea Stickle—about a lost sock in Iceland—seemed to challenge me to recall memories of childhood loss. In my journal, as I began to create a list of events, things, and people from my past, “What Remains” found its form.

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