People at Night

PoTd-Nov 28th

People at night
Denise Levertove

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 don't
look for each other, eight---
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Amond sideshows
under movie signs
pictures made if 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 you and I repeat
guestures that make do when speech
has failed and talk
and talk, laughing, saying
'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
No one.