A Name, A Name, A Name

Monday at dawn, the alarm’s crowing on,

Ring, ringing the new day in.

She’s up out of bed, making breakfast

And dreading heading to work again.

She’s tired.

She steps off of the train and then out in the rain,

Carried away on a sea of strangers.

Men gaping up from their papers

At ladies weightless as vapors

Make her tired.

So tired.

The telephone calls and the windowless walls

Siphon the life from the halls where all these

Half-human beings sit staring at screens

Repeating routines without meaning

Leaving her tired.

So tired.

She closes the door to her office and sits in her chair

And there in the quiet, she hears it,

A name she knows from somewhere.

In the aspect of a face,

In colors and in shapes,

In a fragrance, in a taste,

She hears a name, a name, a name.

In the melody that plays

Behind the memory of a place,

In a kiss, in an embrace,

She hears it: a name, a name, a name.

And if every passing day

Is the unfolding of a play

Then the sum of it should say

A name, a name, a name.