Not a crowd
in the way that a crowd
can be a swell of sameness
like the sea

there is the serious man
who won’t cheer

the skinny ladies who keep hugging each other
a clatter of happy bones

the pretty woman
whose makeup runs like a gutter
down her cheeks

the euphoria catches in my throat too

I let myself get giddy with hope
why not
there is plenty of time
to remember those faces
the vulnerability
of so many stories at once.