Missing

Thank God for the Writer's Digest prompts. Today was my first day at a new full-time job, and I could barely patch together more than will to write this poem. Without a prompt, I might have come up empty.

Today we were to write about something missing. I struggled with this one because I didn't want the "missing-ness" to be the subject of the poem. One could argue that it's the subject, or a subject, of this poem, but I don't think it's the point of the poem.

Marriage, Middle Age

It’s the age of losing things: the name
of that teacher we shared in ninth grade,
the water bill, house keys. Once
we both lost our keys, the same day,
and someone else had to let us into
our own home. Our marriage license:
that went missing in the Reagan years,
along with my perfect dental record
and your twenty-twenty vision.
We don’t quarrel over what slips away,
whether or not it returns. Risky stock.
My wedding ring. Three of our four parents.
Naïve hopes. As long as we both
grow wooly and dim side by side,
as long as we balance our losses, misses,
forgettings, we will have this.