Buying Flea Market Photos

Shorpy Historic Picture Archive

Who were these frozen people?

The faces that smile or don’t.

Outfits from the 40s, 50s, earlier.

Poses careful and formal,
or anarchic, of spontaneous
individuals, couples, groups.

Nothing to indicate identity.

Someone, somewhere, sometime
cared enough to snap their pictures
but left no words, no names.

Now they are the faces of no one.
Motionless images of dead affection.

Ghosts hovering in black and white.

Blank histories a stranger can buy
for a quarter a piece
in this flea market of lost lives.