Cris Hugo

Some unfortunate news you read
on a small column in a tabloid :
three columns in width, ten lines of phrases
impressed together, tells
the final story of his mortality.
You want to be more familiar of him,
sketch his face as it stares back
from the page: want to understand
how his eyes smile like an old friend's;
want to know this stranger more
scribbling his mouth, what dreams it could tell;
want to hear with his hand-drawn ears
what he heard, how the bullet spinned
and splayed him on the pavement.
You'd switch ink from time to time,
black to red, red to black, wondering why
a world promises then quickly takes
a hopeful glow to guide us in the dark.
Your hands become heavier,  the strokes thicker,
the lines of his profile more chaotic
and confused, you forgot when you started
and why you can never stop.