Poem of the Week

Once, I would make certain my name

did not appear in any directory. Now

I dream I am back in different times and places,

and the people I remember I loved

are not there, and the places not at all

as they were, and it is as if I have belonged

to some underground organization

set up to allow no member

to betray another - no member ever

knowing who his associates actually are.

Now I agree to be listed, I ask to be listed -

and hope that this will make it easy to find me.

And now I dream of a list. On it

everything I and those I have been with

have ever truly felt or done is recorded

in the clearest detail. In the same dream

is a man who walks alongside me and knows

nothing but the entire list by heart,

and will recite it to the moment I die,

and then he too will disappear.