Missing

I never realised how many people
there are in the world
until I didn’t know where you were
in it

So many people with your name
faces that looked like you
but weren’t
because I knew you’d changed

It is easy to love the absent
for they are always the same

Yet when I found you
amongst the world’s billions,
the millions, the dozens in my life
You were your memory – strong and true and you

I need to rest my walking fingers
that have trudged through countless phone books
in your hands
and report me as a missing person in your life
Poetry & photograph © B A Saunders - All rights reserved