I want to publish people.
Publish them for where they are.
Talk about their faces.
How a mouth,
round with innocence becomes straight.
Hands learn to speak for their owners.
Eyes stare motionless in the air
as if someone cherished left,
and the space they occupied
is an emptiness they cannot face.
Chapters about love
that bend people,
lay mementos on a table
where dust gathers.
Love affairs that open up smiles.
The longing of lost children
looking for mothers.
Chapters on victory,
defeat hidden by arrogance.
Wisdom learned after a life
of mistakes.
Such people have lines all over them.
And I would specialize in fingers
wanting to touch pictures at museums,
fondling stones found on the ground,
a flower dangling from a hand
that wanted beauty close to itself.
How furniture is rearranged
in houses,
after every murder, robbery, and death,
and beginnings and ends,
a plane going somewhere,
and landing at places
to be continued.