Poetry

An Etymology of Loss by Terri Linn Davis

Loss— / is a hungry word opening up its mouth / wide enough to fit a / gold ring, a child’s / casket.

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Loss—

is a hungry word

opening up its mouth

wide enough to fit a

gold ring, a child’s

casket. A language,

this is the noun of measures:

see, deprivation—

and the weighted stone

of empty.

Imagine, now, its root

word’s meaning:

to loosen, divide, cut apart.

What is loss but a slipped grip,

but a shelter swept away,

but a satiated Lynx

beside a dog’s collar?

See, also, miscarriage

(the vessel unloading

goods not meant for you).

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About the contributor

Terri Linn Davis has an MFA in poetry from Southern Connecticut State University where she adjuncts and teaches writing composition and poetry. She is the recipient of the Jack and Annie Smith Poets and Painters Award (2018) and attended the 2022 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop for poetry. Her poems have most recently appeared in Flypaper Lit, The Daily Drunk Mag, Five South, West Trestle Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Ghost City Review and elsewhere. She is co-editor of Icebreakers Lit, a journal featuring collaborative writing, and is the host of the podcast Too Lit to Quit: the Podcast for Literary Writers. She lives in Connecticut with her co-habby and their three children. You can find her on Twitter @TerriLinnDavis and on her website www.terrilinndavis.com.

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