Inconnu

By Cliff Lake

 

Inconnu

 

He slips past you seen,

Unrecognized as friend or enemy,

He is a moment un-momentous.

A breath perhaps, undrawn,

Maybe he was here,

Maybe he mattered,

Maybe it doesn’t matter if he did once.

Did he stand next to you at the deli, unnumbered?

Was his money given to the great machine

That grinds away behind our every action

Ravenous as death,

And just as insatiable?

Did he fall in?

The noise of it almost imperceptible?

The John Doe given his two lines in the local paper,

His eternity ending there.

What memory could that evoke?

Or does he yet live,

As gray and formless to everyone

As these words now make him?

Why can’t you remember?

Why aren’t you trying?

 

 

Cliff Lake 9/30/2022

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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