What We Miss

We miss our first two or three lovers
and the deep loss we sensed when we
were away from them. We miss feeling
alone without a woman in our arms.
Not that we don't feel alone, just that
the lack of a woman has little to do
with it. We long for the confidence
that guided us once, that had us
reaching for outrageous and inhuman
goals. We lament the truth of the fact
that we don't have much of anything in
mind anymore except for getting a good
night's sleep. We wish we were
ebulliently sleepless once again, driven
by some madness to stay up all night
writing, blindly determined to capture
the world in just the right turn of phrase.
We spend our time molting, straining
to turn back into the hapless but hopeful
creatures we once were. We aim
to squeeze the last little bits of our lives
from the curtailed tubes of our passions.
We aim and we miss. We keep missing
and we're not sure our aim isn't getting
worse. Or maybe it's just that our aims
are increasingly petty. Hard to tell. We
desperately miss not knowing what
the future might bring, and actually
believing it would be a fairy tale.
The future arrived, didn't stay long,
smirked at us, saying, "Nice try,"
and left promptly, no word as to
whether or not any other future
would be coming for us. So now we're
left missing a future that came and went.
We're running on empty, having lost
faith that our fates are grand,
knowing, in truth, they aren't. We'd
really rather not know, but we do,
and which way should we turn? We miss
feeling complete the way we did when
we were married. But we'd never
go back, not to save our lives. We miss
trains and planes and ferries bound for
promise. We miss the mark in failing
at so many things. And wouldn't have it
any other way.

(2007)