Robert Fillman

Who carries photos in wallets

these days? The Gardner Director
of Security does. A small 

Rembrandt etching barely bigger
than a postage stamp, not the real 

one stolen more than thirty years
ago, a pale facsimile,

the self-portrait of a pudgy,
mustachioed, cap-wearing fop 

glaring among the credit cards,
cash, different forms of ID, 

the artist's wild hair belying
the seriousness of his gaze, 

each year of absence, another
ink smudge deepening the circles 

under the eyes. If he could be
in the security chief's ear 

he'd say, art is mainly about
filling empty space, but never 

a word between them, no matter
how many times the bi-fold parts.

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Robert Fillman is the author of House Bird (Terrapin 2022) and November Weather Spell (Main Street Rag 2019). Individual poems have appeared in Gargoyle, Ninth Letter, Poetry East, Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily and elsewhere. He teaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania.