Missing

Today
more than one
person (dog, cat, bird)
will leave home and
not return.  

Tomorrow,
more than one husband or wife (or lover,
mother, father, or owner) will sit
nervously on a couch, twisting its hands
in its lap, turning them over and over
in a motion not unlike that of
a kitten tumbling with a ball of yarn
in happy ignorance of how the world
kills and takes away casually, every day,

as if it were nothing –
and it is nothing,
but do not speak of that
to the nervous ones.

Today, tomorrow, or
on the day after some number
of the missing will return, and joy
and recriminations will begin,
or joy alone,
or recriminations alone, 

and some will grieve and among them
will be some of the returned
people, dogs, cats, birds
who only wanted a moment apart;

and there will be some who will not come back,
not at all,
not ever, 
because some of them will have no doubt died

while others will have stretched their moment apart
into new lives far from former lovers, spouses,
parents, or other owners.

It will be impossible for the ones left behind
to tell the difference,
impossible to explain it’s not a certain tragedy
for all concerned,
impossible to recall that the words 
“happy ignorance”
existed right up to the moment
the person 
(dog, cat, bird)
slipped away.

 

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