Identify This Man by Jerry Durick

Identify This Man

I’ve seen him some place before, the guy the TV news showed

wheel a thousand inch flat screen out of Walmart without paying,

I’ve seen him somewhere; I’ve seen so many faces and places,

crowds full, lobbies and terminals, waiting in line for this or that,

ball games and fair grounds, town squares, main streets, side streets,

out a window, they all walk by eventually; new faces join the old

more familiar faces, people I went to school with, people I passed

on the highway home; I have grouped them, typed them, added

new features to the old ones; I’ve seen him some place before

like a face recognition program, I scan and lock in on him, seen

him before wheeling a smaller set out of the same Walmart five

years ago, one wheel on the cart wobbled just so and he threw down

the cigarette he was smoking when he saw me scan him in, he knew

I’d know him next time, this time, I know him, the type, his features,

he blends with the others, becomes a blur; so many places, so many

faces have become a part of me; he’s in there walking around with

the rest of them, wheeling his new TV, looking for some place to hide.  

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Social Justice Poetry, Tuck Magazine, Yellow Chair Review, Synchronized Chaos, and Haikuniverse.