People At Night

A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd.          We won't
                    look for each other, either-
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Among sideshows
                    under movie signs,
                    pictures made of a million lights,
                    giants that move and again move
                    again, above a cloud of thick smells,
                    franks, roasted nutmeats-

Or going up to some apartment, yours
                    or yours, finding
someone sitting in the dark:
who is it really? So you switch the
light on to see: you know the name but
who is it ?
          But you won't see.

The fluorescent light flickers sullenly, a
pause. But you command. It grabs
each face and holds it up
by the hair for you, mask after mask.
                    You   and   you and I   repeat
                    gestures that make do when speech
                    has failed          and talk
                    and talk, laughing, saying
                    'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
                              No one.