The Lost Name
Rent from DeepDyve- The Lost Name
One day this fall I could not rememberthe name of the island in Hawaiiwhere we’d spent a week every December.There was a wall around the word.
I closed my eyes. Then I thoughtof the red-crested cardinal who keptreturning to their lanai, the yellow tangablaze in the reef as sunlight swept
through a quick break of cloud, the sprawlingbanyan tree near Lahaina Harbor. Nameseverywhere in my brain, nerve cells sparklingwith names. Crimson opakapaka came
to mind. Haleakala. Snorkel Bob’s.But not the island. Not the soundof it, not even the first letter. If I letgo, thought of something else, looked around
it might come to me. I knew I could openRand McNally, check online, ask my wife.Green turtles and breaching humpback whales.Cattle egret glimpsed in the blink of an eye. [End Page 81]
Floyd Skloot’s eighth collection of poems, Approaching Winter will be published by LSU Press in September 2015. LSU also published his collections The End of Dreams (2006), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and The Snow’s Music (2008). Skloot’s work has won three Pushcart Prizes and the pen USA Literary Award. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
