The Disappearance

A surreptitious sleight of hand.

He was there,
until he wasn’t.
There were rumours
he was somewhere.
Somewhere nice everyone hoped.
But the news was sketchy
and quite imprecise.
A story circulated,
he’d been quietly let go.
Another told of treatment,
being brusquely refused.
His dog was destroyed
or found a new home.
His children they lived,
far from home.
It was weeks before we
found out where he had gone-
deported back to the place,
he’d been born.
Fifty years of living,
snubbed out in an instant.
A blessed life blighted
by a deliberate deletion.