Missing In Action
I see you very clearly at the start - a living, breathing
boy
a Victorian green certificate carefully clerk-inked in neat
copperplate,
hard clear evidence of your entry to the world
Again, newly brothered with your Mum and Dad, my unknown great-grandparents,
family members grouped in rows and columns, neat names in
the census
together at century’s turn
And yet again, a decade later, stone-mason’s apprentice, following
your father’s trade
young, strong, single, patriot to the country’s cause , enlisted,
marching away with the Pals,
and then – nothing, vanished from the face of the Earth,
swallowed by Belgian mud, but I’m only guessing,
your service records destroyed, ironically lost in another
Blitz
Never married, no death recorded, no longer there when
you were needed
dead-ends, as if you had never existed, a withered branch
of the family tree
no twigs, no buds, no leaves
gaps in the photographs where you should have been
standing
gatherings you ought to have attended, children you never
had
cousins you failed to provide
and sometimes I can hear your voice filling empty spaces
in conversations
in the folk-lore of family
Already long departed before I came, not here to meet my
arrival
I could never reach out and touch you
it’s as if you’re still missing in action
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