Strangers on the corner of Rou Deja and View Street

I saw three men walking

with their lumps of skin shoved up close to one another

like memories do on holidays

and it has come to this

that the skin and bone and muscle all

crowd together in anxious groups

each small swelling clinging with flat edges to the other

it looked the most fragile thing I've ever seen

as if they but for the glass would fall

and scatter like a thousand water droplets

and be lost

but they in their lumps of muscle bone skin and all

were long armed and tall and moving

with flat eyes that could see beyond itself

and so kept on with its lumps of being

still cold

i saw three men walking

and I turned another way

they put fear in my heart and i care not where they go

except that one looked like you

in your day of fear and strength

and i wanted to wrap all my soft skin around you

and make you human again