Missing
May 4 2010


The fog was viscous, thick
unpredictable.
It seemed to lift,
speeding through
wispy tendrils of smoke;
then soup, again.
A grey vichyssoise
that tasted like cold adrenaline, clammy sweat
driving blind.

It came on cat’s paws, at night
cutting us off from the world,
smothering us
in warm wet softness.
Tropical air, funnelling up,
an immovable arctic front —
north vs. south,
hot blood
vs. cool and calm.

So when the deer appeared
I could only watch
as he materialized, and was gone.
Like ghosting through
his insubstantial body.
Like driving off
cliff-after-cliff
into fog.

In 30 years
they may find the car
in the bottom of a steep ravine,
or 30 feet
of standing water.
The man who suddenly vanished
for no good reason,
abandoning everyone.

Or maybe not.
Half a second
more, or less,
and no one would ever have noticed.



I was in a rush, driving through early morning for to catch a plane. I’m usually vigilant for deer. This time, I was distracted, and only got a fleeting glimpse: after the fact; a near miss.

Next day, there was a story about an old Chrysler New Yorker found at the bottom of a lake. It contained human remains. Which proved to belong to a 19 year old woman who had mysteriously disappeared off the face of the earth some 30 years before. You can imagine the unanswered questions back then: what deep dark secrets had led her to flee? What evil ending had taken her? In the end, of course, it was a wrong turn on a dark night, a momentary miscalculation. …Half a second, more or less.

The “missing” of the title refers to missing persons; to people who unexpectedly disappear, perhaps by accident, perhaps by intention: who take their secrets with them, and go. And also to the barely missed deer: the fleeting intersections of fate and coincidence that end up ruling our lives.