I look for you, ragged from a vast attention shift,

your character adrift, facing ruin

Hovering perpetually on the precipice

of crisis, you aren’t permitted to act

trapped inside the one dilemma

you weren’t scripted to handle

Reputation frozen, preserved,

no opportunity for redemption

No proper memorial either to celebrate

your virtues, grieving incomplete

And then there are the Frankensteins, still

dormant, forgotten files and sketches

in notebooks, unplaced calls,

waiting rooms empty of joy to hear

the announcement: it’s a healthy human

complete with birthmarks and potential

I see you there—sweater draped on a rack,

shoes parked on the shelf,

a pan of developer in a darkroom,

clothespins hanging without purpose