OLD BOYFRIENDS NOT ON FACEBOOK

by Bryan Borland

Once in a tempered moon
I type their names
but the searches return no results.
Only three of them
are missing
. I look
on milk cartons and
vodka bottles, rouse
myself from muddled dreams
expecting a somber officer
of the military
to appear at my door.
The more they seem
to have vanished into thick air,
the more their legends grow,
the more mercy
I can offer them
for moving on when I haven’t,
not fully, these boys
whose desertion
leaves me in limbo.

© Bryan Borland