From Afar

Oh, you are

beautiful,

though in no
conventional sense, and
yes the word is overused
but occasionally correct, as in
“full of beauty,” with it spilling
over your edges and into the street,

I can see dictatorships dissolving
in your wake as you pass through
gray and dingy capitals of pain,
the people rising up pastel
behind you, their leaders bowing
to pressure, opening gates
and secret files, domestic spies
throwing up their hands and flinging
headphones to the floor, questioning
the rationale for listening in on
drab conversations when you
are possible,

and you still walking,
oblivious to what’s happening,
serene, humble, not even noting
the turmoil you cause,
drama, even financial panic —

you don’t see the bankers
with their hands full of fraud
running after you to buy a glance,

you don’t see the drug dealers
kneeling and begging their marks
to try an addiction they can satisfy,

the warriors gnashing armor
and wailing missiles at each other
regardless of uniform just to gain ground
where you might pass,

and all the time you think you’re nothing,
you’re ordinary as shattered silk, wasted
as a second chance,  all the time
you’re spilling over and the world
slips on what you leave,

and most of all, in all that
roar and tumult, all that steady
chaos, in all the following general disbelief
that you are walking among us,

you don’t ever think of me.