And if you were that old collection of smudged walls
and dusty glass, you would be embarrassed to be
caught by                        the morning –

stretched out fence to fence, your top half in scaffolds,
cross in repair from the super storm, gravestones covered
September leaves           in March,

unprepared for the sun, bleary-eyed, pulled from that
dream of the underground railroad – belly full of tunnels,
tunnels full of                   bloody songs.

And if you were a stone, you would miss the
touch of a palm, the cool of skin that matches you
smoothness for               smoothness.

And if you were a window, you would want to be
young forever, crystal clear. In the dusk you would
want to reflect                 a face.

And if you were an echo, you would miss shoes most
of all, the way you would cradle the fall of a heel and
repeat it                           to the rafters.

Josh Humphrey was born and bred in Kearny, N.J.. His career as a Librarian, which is into its second decade, has been the source of much poetry in his life. Recently, his poems have been published in US1 Worksheets, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Havik, and The Light Ekphrastic.