Missing Person Report (Poem)

Missing Person Report

We go on the police reports
        when we have nothing else

but bones — her legs found
        in 1996 — and her skull

that turned up fifteen years
        afterwards: just last year.

We can't say whether
        her light eyes darted uneasily

in the presence of a stranger
        or shined like the sparklers

we twirled those summers
        on Coney Island. Remember how

we held them up against our eyes
        to mesmerize our lovers' gaze?

We don't know if she was dirty
        blonde, her hair mimicking

the sandy color of some beach
        on Long Island, hiding the rest

of her as the tide rolled out.
        She could be 18 or 50, taller

or shorter than you or I or any
        average missing person. Take

a guess at her weight before you
        try to image who her killer is,

what he does while some Eyewitness
        reporter tags a part of her in his

camera's eye. She's been gone so
        long, and all we have are the pieces

of her dumped in sacks, one off
        Ocean Parkway, another, much later,

on Fire Island. A composite sketch
        posted to the Web includes no finger

prints — no hands have ever been
        recovered — so we can't claim

as certain she raised them in defense.
        Scars on her right leg, suture marks

on her left ankle might help in this
        ongoing investigation. What won't

is knowing that whoever she is,
        she polished all ten toes the color red.

© 2012 Maureen E. Doallas
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This poem is my response to a City Room blog feature, "Police on Long Island Release Sketch of Woman Whose Skull Was Found Last Year", which appeared in The New York Times on January 7, 2012. I've incorporated into the poem some of the few details available about this missing woman.