Missing

It’s easy to say ‘I miss you’;
I miss being eighteen,
playing keyboards in a Soul band,
and the Salvador Dali melted clock
which told us, shakily,
when it was past our bed time, and again,
when it was dawn.

But not like I miss you.

I prefer to say ‘I’m missing you’ –
a phrase which captures hearts
like the captors of a missing person,
and realises a similar numbing absence,
a hole which lets in a draught like no other,
the icy emptiness of a love-shaped gap.

Missing you is some affliction indeed,
but one which is cured instantly
by a moment’s lingering kiss.