lost ü

in İskenderun or Cairo or God only knows

it fell from my name

got trampled in dirt, wasn’t

scorpion-crunched but scrambled and scuttled and fashioned

from dust a magnificent hopalong gung-ho

hop and went

up

up

up to a perch in the cleft of a spindly

twig

not a halo as such nor legible

signage—construed as a fly or an optical

blur, dashed-off-forever-unfinished notation

inscrutable

scrap—a blink or a blip, caress, kiss, wince or

half of an upturned

discarded moustache

who knows?

but up there for years

nonchalant

unattributable

an ahem, an unnoticed

notice-me-please

elliptical

in the olive trees