New Poem: You in a Crowd

This poem was inspired by a quote from Henry David Thoreau, which is included beneath the title of the poem and partially quoted in the poem itself.  There may be small changes forthcoming, but I think, for the most part, it is finished.  Enjoy!

You in a Crowd

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.  -Henry David Thoreau

Tonight I find myself surrounded by people I do not know, nor care to know,

Strange men who in-between each shrieking cup of gin, lead lives of quiet desperation,

Who shuffle past indefinite in their choices, but uniform in sin.

In the swarming multitude I feel a warm, soft patch of unfamiliar skin

Brush past, and for a moment glancing back, I glimpse your face, as in the wind

The belly of a leaf might turn, as if coerced, and catch a bit of vernal rain.

I’ve seen your face before somewhere.  Was it you who sat there on the subway train?

Did I see you at an interview for a job we both desired, or are you the one

Whose glare I sense in the pictures of a classmate now deceased, like faded, self-reflections?

At times I almost feel as though we pass dim recollections

Of ourselves amid a crowd of old acquaintances we never made, compelled

To turning back to feel the faint touch of who we might have been.