When Children Disappear
You wonder if they ever really existed
because how can anything
exist so briefly,
like putting a lighter to incense
at dusk and letting go before it lights,
watching faint smoke vanish
so artless you might have imagined it.
I imagine they folded up
their secret selves
like origami cranes, launched
into the bazooka sky
of an alternate universe,
where every day is a holiday
and no one is forgotten.
I hope they grow old there.
I hope their voices deepen and they sprout
hair in funny places. I hope they fly
too high and fall too hard
and get drunk off cheap boxed wine
so their wings flutter fast like a hummingbird’s,
and you wish for a breathless moment
you could always be there
to catch them.
