Faces in Cages
  
 Moving across strange ethers faces
 in cages they seem out of place.
  
 They flash, passers-by in a rush
 destinies in the dark await.
  
 Behind them a cloud of grey hovers
 pieces of souls they will never be.
  
 Speeding at the command of a light
 they make eerie sounds to signal lives.
  
 They belong somewhere in time
 racing to achieve an ephemeral meaning.
  
 I see but will not recall them nor an aura
 nor a smile nor a touch of gloom.
  
 Illusions of apparitions ghastly as ghosts
 they race to their custom-made precipices.
  
 It is an everlasting carnival of worker ants
 on roads made of dirt made of stone.
  
 Origins the same destinies without mystery
 yet they continue within their private glass bowl.
  
 Full of color rainbow in the eye of the observer
 so pale within, they might have crossed into the abyss.
  
 Faces in cages captives of their own invented prisons
 they go without a thought to mere oblivion.
  
  
  
 His daddy’s old mirror
  
 Sometimes he sheds a piece of his old chagrin
 with a thought to the father of all his glee
 the remembrance of a taste so long forgotten.
  
 sometimes he looks into his daddy’s old mirror.
  
 Nothing has changed and he ponders why
 there was a cake once, yesterday or long ago
 when he saw the dusk on a whole decade.
  
 why the excitement tingles deep within yet.
  
 He knows he has dumbed many a blade
 worn quite a few more of the working blues
 scraped the skin, watched the clean blood pour
 and see it come to life again, ten years old still.
  
 He wonders now, alone in a world of close knit kin
 a child yet as he steps into his magic sled to the city
 at the lady who time after time tenders a discount
 to the one who giggles at the last trick played on his daddy.
  
  
 If only you would cry
  
 If only once you would shed a lonely tear
 so I may cup my hand in a pale chalice 
 and gather as a treasure the words of a pain
 always unspoken in foolish bravery.
 
 
 If only once your breast heaved in a sob
 so I may place my somber palm upon your heart
 and make it come alive with a quick jolt
 although perhaps you would rather sleep.
  
 If only once your lips cried a whisper of agony
 so I may venture a warm kiss onto your soul
 and tell you comforting tales of universal sorrow
 but perhaps you dare not live another hope. 
  
 If only once your eyes pleaded for a hand
 so I may be the one to entrust you with a life
 and confess that there is no greater pleasure
 but to give you sunshine when your night prevails.
   

Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications.