Collective Miss

by Mara Wasilik

Accelerating into a curve on a smooth, new Maryland road, the trees dripping foliage after a wet winter, I find myself missing you. It's only a week or so after the third anniversary of your death, so this ache is natural. You have been on my mind. A man loping through a strip mall had your gait. Another had your forehead, and, yet another, your somewhat sinister glare. Yes, it's you I miss.

Then again, it's only a year since we broke up and we still call and laugh and make suggestive hints at a torrid date we never seem to keep. You've cut your long blond hair off, so you say, and I am curious to see if you still have the masterful power without it. It just may be you that I am missing.

A Looming monster of a truck speeds by and I congratulate myself on my calm, giving credit to my arduous solo drive to Boston as my tutor. That masculine northern drone becomes audible, almost an endearing whine. The potential of you appears on the horizon, your searching to be well, my hope of living with you in the city I love so much. Could I miss you as well as the others?

As well as the brogued blue eyed Irish carpenter, the pompous artist/musician/poet, the noble and staunch bricklayer, the ticket scalper posing as Michaelangelo's David, the bartender, the other Boston charmer, the Tennessee gentleman, the sweet college boy, the highschool crushes, the useless eggs? Can it be that I miss you all? My, I am a collective Miss.