There is unreality
in the way someone says
"Gary is missing, and has been
for twenty-eight hours,"
and banality returns
immediately: "can you take
his shifts?"
This happens to people
who do not know my name,
not the man from work
with a wakeful baby
and his distraught wife.
There is futility
in praying for the phone to ring
the news must be good,
it must
but will not be
can not be,
after police are called.
My whispered prayer is single:
"whatever this thing is
may it not end,
this time,
with a body in the river"
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