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.
Youandyou and Irepeat
gestures that make do when speech
has failedand talk
and talk, laughing, saying
'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
No one.