Given the Mother Word Pure

There is a word I want
for something missing that isn’t lost—
not mislaid (slippers on a shelf)
not hidden (trinkets in pockets)
not absent (the way to your room).

We were sitting at a table in the day room
playing with Scrabble pieces,
making little words from big words.
In picture, you saw pure.
Then I scrambled pure to form
a word you learned long ago.

From the burnt-out forest of your brain,
a memory leapt out.
“Puer,” you said, “that’s—a boy.”
In that moment, you were all girl,
fourteen, first-year Latin swinging
branch to branch.

Where is the word I want
for something missing that isn’t lost—
unseen, yet flawlessly present.

— Patricia McKernon Runkle