Procession Line - Jason Melvin
at what age
does every face
you see
look vaguely familiar
where you feel that each person
is someone you know
used to know
high school?
that grocery store job
twenty some odd years ago?
maybe a poker game?
do I stare at people
too often
while living in
a narrow enough world
to have seen
every face once?
A singular face almost sticks
where giant swaths of my childhood
have disappeared
and every face
in this line
kind of thinks they might
Know
the person in front or behind
cause we all know the guy in the casket
truth is
I’m just hiding
playing the face game
keeping my thoughts from the front of the room
keeping my thoughts from the guy in the casket
too young to be there
I’ve never quite figured out the proper way
to grieve
who has?
yet our lives are filled
with opportunities to learn
Bio:
Jason Melvin received a gimmicky T-shirt from his teenage daughter with a picture of one large fist fist-bumping a much smaller fist. The caption read, “Behind every smart-ass daughter is a truly asshole Dad”. It fit.
He can be found on Twitter @jason5melvin and on his website at www.jasonmelvinwords.weebly.com.