PEDESTRIANS
By Anne Coray, Homer
The names of whom we will never know;
I thought to give them some—Mary,
Jack, Rick, and Drew and Joe—
No, too plain, a bit pedestrian—and so:
Angela, Forrest, Martin, Aldo, Theodore.
Their lives came next: implied
By dress and the faces that they wore.
The woman young, unprivileged, her goals
Sure to end in politics, the man
To the left stalwart in his views
Of justice for the poor, while the famed
Professor, with scarf & kind intent
Meant to educate the gentleman,
Old and crabbed, with closed umbrella.
And the backpacker from Bern or Dresden?
Ach, Americans! How much you think you know!
Our names are ours, and our lives
Have always been our own.