The Missing

It’s been eight long months

and I’ve done all kinds of missing

From the deep achy wells

to the small needling  pinches

I’ve been pressed up to the window of what I've not got

I’ve done big swells of ocean missing

dried sage and lavender missing

gnarled old oaks

grapes on the vine

and blackberries like wildfire tangled here and there missing

It’s been rich coffee talking missing

weavers in the windmills missing

goat cheese shudders

herb scented fingers

and everything that gypsy touches turning to beauty missing

I’ve had kids in mud boots

gnawing unripe apples from the top of the tree missing

little bitty horses with big, brown teeth missing

no need to lock the door

old dump truck beeping

its backing up song

and the roots being severed from the bottom of my feet missing

There’s been two a.m. heaving from my guts missing

little whispery twangs of hurt missing

tryin’ to rub it off of my little girl’s back missing

and the missing that submits cuz what else can it do...

And just when I think there ‘aint no more missing that can be done,

I hear a call from over the mountains and across the flat expanse

of a mountain poem

and a naked poet

and despite the way it pulls real heavy in my throat

I find myself humming

because no matter how you cut it, that’s just grand

We

We

My daughter snatched the ziploc bag
bulging with cookies of generous size,
silver dollar chocolate chips,
and she brought it to her room
where she ate them,
I imagine,
one right after the other
and didn't bother to hide the bag.

That's what she's doing with it.

My spouse wakes up hourly
just to check on it
feed it
let it roll around in his head
like so many loose marbles.
Then wears it around his eyes
as heavy red goggles the rest of the time.

The little one doesn't know
that his milk is laced with it.

And I

I wear it like a backpack
or one of those lead x-ray aprons
that let them see inside you,
shifting the dull pull of it from one arm to the other
bearing it sometimes between the ribs
or behind my lids
or in that hard to swallow knot in the gullet
and I watch it curiously, cautiously, as it goes about its work
careful to hit only one of us at a time,
before landing softly in the quiet spaces between us.