Who is it I see looking at me

From that empty canvas?

Is it that teen, staring vacant

Her face marked and scarred

From the acid of depraved lust?

Or is the child raped and cast aside

Her little pleas for help, a prayer

On every mother’s lips?

Can it be the woman sitting alone

Refilling her glass in the dark

Not all abuse, no not all abuse

Leaves a mark?

Or that homeless man

Shivering under the threadbare blanket

Warmed by dreams of a home

from a lifetime ago?

Can it be me, even

When my dreams were young

And worlds within my hands?

Like the ball we would laughingly throw

As we chased yet another surf

on an ocean without end?

Mother’s sisters daughters friends

Crowd in whispered hushes

The heady rush of voices

That I will never hear again

I look up at the crowded canvas

Face faces that quickly fade

Your eyes go last, a hint of a smile

That is gone in a wisp of smoky haze

And a laugh that echoes in my ear

Just an empty canvas with nothing there.