The Overcoat

Paler than the endless night

The lowered hat and hunched overcoat

Push ghostlike through streets emptier

Than the vacuous space surrounding an unknown planet

In a galaxy that never mattered to any poor soul

Or god with too much time on his hands.

Moments evaporate one after the other Like someone else's dreams on waking.

With each footstep a window shuts,

A shutter pulled inward, a door closed.

The walls stretch themselves higher inaccessibly. Muffled voices turn into quiet whispers.

The ghost shrieks its utter loneliness And impels himself forward.

Backward, sideways, or stops altogether:

Undesired and unremembered But still unable to forget himself Burrowing like a maggot towards time's end.