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.