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Man with Picture Frame

By Michele Wolf Michele Wolf

90th and Third, NYC

We almost missed him, although his face,

As blunt as a busy Picasso, all shifting

Planes, was wedged in a picture frame.

We almost missed him, the way one can stop

Seeing hunched-over bodies along the street

Or a favorite picture above the sofa

In the living room, so familiar it seems

Invisible, until it has drifted askew

Or been removed. "If only he had something

More contemporary," my companion offered.

The man in the frame extended his crushed

Paper coffee cup, fingers hugging its Greek

Pillars and statues, white and blue.

"Spare any change?" he asked. I brought

Forth a quarter. His eyes, brilliant, said

I am a masterpiece. This is where I live.

Published by permission of the author.

Source: Poetry (December 1993).

Biography

Poet, teacher, and editor Michele Wolf was raised in Miami, but has spent much of her life in New York City or just outside Washington D.C., in Maryland. She earned degrees from Boston University and Columbia University, and began to write poetry seriously after winning a scholarship in non-fiction to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. There, Wolf says, she had a “transformative experience…it was the first time I was . . .

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