Page 22 - POTB Issue 11
P. 22

Missing




                                 I hadn’t seen you around for a while.

                                 Our baker in the local supermarket
                                 said she spoke to you last Tuesday.

                                 I asked the shopping trollies in the car park.
                                 I asked a tourist taking a photograph.
                                 I saw no sign of you in the bus shelter

                                 but spotted a cigarette butt, the type you smoke.
                                 I even clambered down on to the beach
                                 and spoke to the seals, who said

                                 you hadn’t fed them in a couple of days.
                                 I searched all around town, street by street.
                                 Talking to a bricklayer who had run out of cement

                                 a nurse who had forgotten to wash her hands
                                 and some children

                                 who didn’t know how to use the swings.
                                 I climbed on roof-tops and looked from chimney-pots.
                                 Searched down storm drains

                                 and hunted beneath rotten piers.
                                 I looked everywhere …until ten minutes ago

                                 I spoke to a gardener who remembered you
                                 smelling his roses yesterday.


                                 James Andrew sinclair






















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