A pair of clothes peg cheekbones
Pinch the skin tight and
Hang both sheets out to dry,
A soiled and stained bedspread set,
That I bet’s never been Vanish white.
Seems the kids have taken their toll
Rubbing teabags into the page,
Like crayons on bark until he shows his age.
But that was yesteryear; now they
Rub the whorls of their thumb on placid glass
Until a wild sepia toned Instagram filter appears.
Blonde skin, sallow and yellow beneath a fox fur beard,
Paragraphs scribbled upon used grease proof paper
Broken by scratchy punctuation and a shaving rash,
Bobbles of red, like wool on a jumper,
Delicate as each individual eyelash,
Gossamer spiderwebs spun atop tired bags,
That sit like bruises beneath each eye,
Plump seedless grapes,
Fit to burst,
Let the juice cascade from beneath the precipice of
Tightly knitted brows, a thin line of crochet,
Two dinosaur femurs buried where they lay,
Framing two hollow yet insightful eyes,
Serious but delicate, like rocks dropped through ice.
These geological conquistadors,
What have they seen so worthy to ignore,
All the things to pass by and not keep score,
Surely they can’t have already absorbed
Everything deemed gorgeous,
Prescribed to wariness and movements cautious,
Squirrel themselves away
Just so there’s no need to meet our gaze,
Acknowledge and adore us?