Faces

[eddierosenthal]

Faces
first you buy a green truck, make it a ford ranger.
you drive it home, and on the road
you see forty or fifty green ford ranger trucks,
just like yours.
then you buy a book you've been wanting to read,
and on the way home you see forty or fifty people
all carrying your book.
then you have a loved one die, and pretty soon
you see their face in forty or fifty people you see on the street,
in the movies, and on your tv screen.
Then you see their face in your dreams, in your mirror,
and in celebrities eyes when they blink.
You see their shadow in the sand, and maybe you want
them to come back to you more and more.
Pretty soon you can't forget their face, because all you see
is their face.
When you pour the salt you pour it in your coffee,
because that is the way you now live.

You used to read and write poetry, then you read a series of poems all
black and sober, and the crow ate your heart out.
You remember once making love in the sand, then once
again in a field of trees near a beach you can't remember.
How amazed you were there inside your body once,
and realize the sand and the shadow and the face was yours.

You learn to write your dreams out one by one, but they all come out
the same. The face is still there, but hiding in your shadow.
You see then the faces of others
not yours and not your loved one.

They are their own faces -- but they say to you
they see their loved ones
in you.
Life is a big circle now where everyone sees the dead in
the living, and the living see the dead.
Pretty soon everybody is driving a green truck.

-- Ed Rosenthal