A sideways stare from a passing motorcar
is all you will ever be;
a slanted glance,
framed delicately in a moment of shared space.

I do not know you;
I will never know you.

I knew you once,
for a moment,
for that smallest stillframe of time
discernable by human memory,
packed away in an overclad hallway
in the warren of the brain,
soon to be covered o’er by another instant,
a tourist-photo, whose lack of meaning,
of composition,
tarnishes the nanosecond in which you dwell,
puncturing your canvas dwelling,
which lies so gingerly strewn
amidst the soggy cardboard boxes
and mothball clothes
that clutter the halls of a hoarder’s home.

Perhaps one day you will be uncovered;
perhaps for another fleeting moment
we shall meet.
And perhaps I will recognize you
from that framèd frame of time
which to this moment lay interred
in the confines of a mind,
which in this moment is unearthed
from the confines of a mind.

And in that instant, yet again,
but for an instant, yet again,
reunited shall we be,
though we never were united,
nor ever shall we be,
but in that stillframe canvas,
now antique,
now desirable once more,
brought forth to be collected
by another mindless hoarder,
mindful of that moment,
for an instant.

In two places, one time dwells,
beneath the treasured artifacts,
the forgotten knick-knacks,
the lines of obscure poetry,
and the cherished boyhood dreams.

It will never be erased.
It will doubtless be misplaced
in the ceaseless sea of seconds
in the ship that’s bound to sink.