clattering through the thrift store frames
I feel like I’m invading someone’s home
I wish that I could sense the names
of all lost faces smiling through the chrome:
a father and a child’s birthday cake
a lady older than the willow tree
a crayon Jesus standing on a lake
a cross-stitched kitten sleeping on a knee.
and fingerprints – who has run through these?
the dust guards frames as well as any knight
I pick a few: plastic blacks, mahoganies
and take them to the clerk who spies the night.
the faces of the lost vanish like a bruise
wrapped up in tape and last week’s news.