[Poem-a-Week] Souvenirs and Evidence by Susan Hayden

The Search and Rescue crew handed me the bag

The Search and Rescue crew handed me the bag
like a forgotten sandwich. I held it for days; 
a Zip-Loc of belongings: his taxi wallet, damp 
from melted snow with twelve, crisp hundred dollar bills,
weekend cash to pay for my 45th birthday.
His red bandanna covered in rocks and ice,
smelling of sweat and torn mountain skin.
Our son’s 5th grade picture in his wallet:
hazel eyes, pirate t-shirt, tousled hair;
face staring back at me with that “I am safe” look.
And then the goggles, still foggy, 
still defrosting from a long night and buried.
I held the bag for days; it was the last of him. 
Later, when people came to pay their respects,
to tell me how “he was in a better place,” 
“He died doing what he loved”
only the ache remained,
like heart surgery without anesthesia.
I would share the bag and its contents
with anyone who was interested.
A friend put her arm around me and said: 
“You don’t have to worry anymore. All the things 
you were afraid of have already happened to you.”

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Susan Hayden is a multigenre writer. She is the author of Now You Are a Missing Person, her 2023 hybrid memoir in poems, stories and fragments. Published by Moon Tide Press, the book received a starred review from Kirkus and was selected for the Best of 2023: Fiction and Literature from the Los Angeles Public Library. Most recently, Hayden's book was also a Finalist in The Zibby Awards 2023 in the category of Best Coming of Middle/Old Age, awarded by Zibby Owens. She has been published in the anthologies Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press); Los Angeles In the 1970s: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine (Rare Bird Books); The Black Body (Seven Stories Press), I Might Be The Person You Are Talking To (Padua Playwrights Press) and elsewhere. Hayden is the creator and producer of Library Girl, now in its 15^th year at Ruskin Group Theatre. In 2015, she received the Bruria Finkel/Artist in the Community Volunteerism Award from the Santa Monica Arts Foundation, for her “significant contributions to the energetic discourse within Santa Monica’s arts community.” She lives in Santa Monica with her husband, music journalist Steve Hochman. 

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