Stranger

How many times has your face appeared
in strangers' photographs?
Over a shoulder, behind a friend,
or in a crowd looking off, 
unknown and unaware.
Perhaps you are smiling
for a reason they will never know,
forever caught in someone else's memory.

How many facets of your own soul
do you still not know?
You would not recognize yourself,
even if they were lined up and set before you,
so deep and dazzling would they be.
Beautiful stranger, you might murmur,
who you are, God only knows.


-February, 2013