by Carson Wolfe
Two years after the security footage
replayed my footsteps from the bar,
off along that dark wooded route.
The news died down, my face faded
on missing posters, but you never
stopped searching. I heard your boots
crunch the frozen layer of November,
she will turn up eventually, you said.
I was right under your nose.
Your dog never picked up a scent
as he paddled through the weeds
of my hair. You looked for me
behind trees, but not the fold
of your spaniel’s ears, the wet
carpet from muddy paws
in the trunk of your car.
Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet and winner of New Writing North’s Debut Poetry Prize (2023). Their work has appeared in Rattle, The North, New Welsh Review, Evergreen Review, and The Penn Review. They live in Manchester UK with their wife and three daughters.