Smiles Poem by Desmond Y. Eklu

It covered my face so well
As I walked between the walls.
Laughter and confidence was my own
And that I never owed.

Easily I moved
Afraid of no owl
But little thought had I
Of the pandemic within a pandemic.

It was the little things that were huge
But only to my eyes.
The bare face of the bare stomachs,
That seemingly happy but hungry faces
That received but from the passerby.

On those faces were smiles without mask,
Smiles without shirts,
Smiles as bright that could bright through the darkest of places.
They melt with the fear of a pandemic.
And fear was of their lives.
For human knew not them.
But they smiled through it.

But you who wears a mask,
Remember them.