The FAB&PP Poem of the Month for May 2005
there are the people that you recognize but do not know
you see them
every day
on the train, on the street, shaking their cup, hawking their
paper
some for years, features, even gaits, familiar as a lover or a
friend
but they are unspoken, strangers
there are other people
that you don’t know
passed in an instant’s observation
snatched
their emotional lives exposed but hidden in the crowd
thrust
forward but avoided as you walk on
their phones and friendships and
annoyance and joy and quotidian conversation left behind
then there
are the friends, co-workers, acquaintances who think of you as known
you
treat them as if they’re real
you speak to them as if that moment was
as serious as the sky behind you
but they are filtered through the fresnel
focus of a few mutual angles in the light of time
only a stutter in a
sleepless dream