My poems disappeared

My poems disappeared
in an instant
in a sputter of inexplicable
electronic mayhem.

Part of my life
gone
lost
No paper copies in my files
no relics of a virtual past.

I am forced
in my poetry as in my life
to begin anew
to write a “now”,
a history yet to come.

Like ginger on my tongue
the prospect is tangy in my mind.

by Anne Slater
August 6, 1999