A.D. Harper

A.D. Harper



The missing

If there is snow outside then it follows
there must be a character outside in the snow
though the protagonist will search the house first

the likely rooms and the unlikely rooms, calling
their name and then seeing them through a window
outside in the snow and depending on the genre they’re

making snow angels or gunshot wounded or mind-
broken or staring at the whiteness if they’ve never
witnessed it before and the next reunion scene

begins outside in the snow, choose one of quiet wonder,
scarlet pools of blood, electrical conspiracies,
celestial shadows written on the ground, but

the phone going then, here and reality, a family crisis
seeded with some news and someone changes
the channel to a football game so you don’t see

the end, though it was probably what you expected,
and the snow was probably not snow, though snow
will come this winter, softly falling, falling harder.





A.D. HARPER’s poetry has appeared in The Interpreter’s House, Perverse, and The Manchester Review, among others. He lives in England and can be found online at adharper.com.