Not Lost, Not Found (Poetry)

He disappeared; popped out to buy The Times,
(That’s what they said) and hasn’t been seen since.
At least, not by his family or friends,
Unnerved by loss and living day to day,
They struggle with not knowing anything:
No clue what happened; how or why he went.

She vanished, too, that pretty student nurse;
The face smiling from the posters around town:
‘Have You Seen This Girl?’ For someone must.
Passers-by suppose the odds aren’t good.
The photograph is old, the edges curl,
But there’s a chance. No body’s been found yet.

They’re legion, all the unaccounted for,
The ones who failed that last time to come home,
Thought runaways or victims of some crime.
And no one ever sees them go, no one
Watches or observes them slip away
To become a number added to a list.

Who thinks of those left lonely in the dark?
How long will they keep up their luckless search?
When does the time come to abandon hope?
And are they half afraid to look in case
They glimpse someone familiar in a crowd
And recognise a face they used to know?

Perhaps it was by choice, not accident:
No case of being spirited away,
But strong and blinding impulse caught its breath,
And lured them off. The final break made clean
And unexplained, totally unplanned:
One needful act, instinctive sleight of hand

That left a gasp abandoned in thin air.
But he had seemed okay — his usual cheerful self —
Few worries, as far as anyone could say.
So, no one guessed that anything was wrong.
He, shortly after breakfast, left his chair
Then, like a mirage, melted and was gone.