Shirts

Photo by Joaquin Toro on Unsplash

Somebody has hung their laundry in a small yard to dry.
The shirts, in particular, are people’s faces.
Their bodies extend below them invisibly and try
to walk on the ground. In some places

they are damp, as if the pockets had been crying.
The dampness of fabric makes seeing
into it easier, as if anything could be hidden by shirts drying.
I think they get the muscles of their faces to work by being

reminded of it from gusting wind, or the wind
is their breath, and their expressions are made
from shapes sunlight casts into the shade
when they’re gathered together. Soon they will be unpinned

from life, it will have only been an afternoon. They begin
to decline in confusion. An angel carries them in.