POEMS
ONE OF YOU
There are some men who have deserted life,
who finally couldn't stand the taste
and spit it out. Something in them is broken
in such a way that only death can heal it,
or worse. Sometimes you see one in a Mexican village
walking aimlessly, regarding creation
with a slack stare while all around him sit
the small dark inhabitants of the place,
taut bellies, eaters of suffering. One night,
he walks for hours, out past the lighted doorways
and faint snatches of incomprehensible speech
to where the darkness is total and the life
he wanted to remember breathes in the grass
which he can't see. He gets down on his knees
under the dancing stars, and on his hands
and vomits the last of it up.
In the morning he will order breakfast, hands
curled on the spotless linen, face
facing the empty sunlight-but it's the meal
after the last and you will not recognize him.
He is back, and he is one of you again.
Robert Mezey
