QUESTION
is there some fabulous machine
that spends it's days,
switched on
by some faceless worker,
bending the chain
knitting the open weave
upright citizens
of all that encircle
and contain?
is there a man
with a lightbox
who loupes and observes
all the photographs
we take
through life?
the bad ones
of aunts and uncles in
chain restaurant sombreros
of us at three
potty training blackmail shots
or the sad fading polaroids
of moments like this
and like this...
his hand on my back
eyes wide
mouth open in a smile.
who reads the manuscripts
that sit, idling like dying engines,
in attics across the plains?
boxes of paper
lost to the world,
written by someones mother
in the moments before daylight
and hidden from view.
not some sappy crap, either,
she had things to say.
but no one read the words.
and who will set them free?
skeletal birds from a rusted cage.
i bet sometimes
people wish
that
all the unanswered questions
would stop rattling around
in their heads.
like the one about what i meant
when i said yes...
or when i asked for more than you had
and the time
where we met
stopped cold by recognition
and panicked
ran
fled.
skeletal birds.
unlinked chain.
faded from view.
by Mara Lee