Vittoria Vaughan
The disappeared
When you go, you go forever,
disappear from view
like a satellite. A star sometimes
is born when people pass on,
scoots a continuous path,
but for you there’s only emptiness,
black skies and severed moons.
At first, days faded into one another,
like faces in a crowd.
No letters, no calls,
your only replacement
was an elusive string of conversations,
those i held in the head.
There was little else to do then
but act as if nothing had happened,
turn things inside-out.
Like watching a film,
there was always a dark certainty to escape.
‘Whilst You Were Sleeping’*
taught me the importance of tears again.
(Looking back, i can laugh at the irony
forget how pleased i was to lose myself
and my memories of you
in the transparency of the film;
not to mention the wasted opportunities
at the end, the futility
of a happy-ever after
people slip unconsciously into another world).
The time came when
i thought to follow you
or fill dark glasses
with secret preparations
swallowed before i sleep.
But what’s the use
imagining anything’s better
than having you back?
So i look forward to dreaming,
a time when you and i return
to standing on our heads,
the giddy excitement caused by
a rush of blood and the way we pretend
it nearly makes us faint.
Page(s) 149
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