THE ABSENTEE

8 6 Y T H E A B S E N T E E M A I R I M A C I N N E S And so she disappeared. Nobody cared. She was not dead, she’d simply gone abroad With Mr. Compromise, and had a child, Another Compromise, and so we dared Assume she was OK. OK? Merde, We said, examining our lives, rewards Are few, and now we’re sadly left, self-styled Hip, all true, all ponytail and beard, But broken, broken. Somewhere perhaps she reigns A campus puss, ‘void of the ache for art,’ Strutting authority, know-how, critique. She’ll read us in our cool cacophonies. Writing reviews, she’ll miss what once she had, A gifted past, deep in the once romantic. ...