SOMEONE

Someone, maybe you, maybe him, maybe me.

Someone hides behind a title.

Someone mutters to the wind.

Someone doesn’t know his name.

Someone’s dead, his face become a mask.

Some masks are kept from women.

In this human kitchen, the knife of time

craves its fatal stone.

Someone’s met once, spoken to,

dead or not yet born.

Someone walks toward other faces.

Someone brushes past.

It’s said someone’s born innocent.

It’s said Plato’s words

relive the death of Socrates.

His mouth spews death’s spittle,

he writes, and a dead man walks the street.

Someone born one year

dies another. Pinched

between birth and death, this interlude’s

a process of arrears.

Death takes a breather. Someone presses on.