Karen, Lost (Charles Harper Webb)

I mostly love this poem by Charles Harper Webb (who is a poet, psychotherapist and guitarist!).

It starts with N losing track of his wife, Karen, in kelp while scuba diving. His fear, so palpable, is instantly recognizable. My own breath felt clenched as I worried about her drowning, caught in the seaweed. (I have my own such fears when it comes to ever scuba diving.)

N then moves on to tell of other instances when Karen got lost. When she was a child, when he stood waiting for her at the alter (and I loved this example - it may have been truthful - she may have just been lost, but I like to imagine his impatience and the wait for her to emerge seeming forever and him wondering if she had gotten lost, she was taking so long).

N then gets to the impetus of his poem and of Karen being lost. Karen is in labor and N fears again that Karen may get 'lost' in the act - that she may not be the same Karen afterwards.

I love that in describing Karen, you get a good sense of N - that he is a worrier and that he likes to hold tight those whom he loves.

I like this poem a lot, but I hate this line, " I'll clasp your hands when you push / through the fronds of childbirth", which might just be the most cringe-inducing image for labor I've every heard (the fronds of childbirth?! [thumbs down!]). 

However, beside that line, this poem rings true for me and contains such love (and loving worry) that I feel very sentimental as I read it aloud. 

Favorite line: " Will she become / my son's mother, and nothing more?"