GUY WHO NEVER EXISTED

-Dan Gualtieri

He was born on no day
in particular, nameless
and to parents who exist
nowhere.

Investigations have unearthed
no records regarding
his disposition as a child,
whether he loved or hated
oatmeal or Brussels sprouts,
was involved in team sports,
grew up in the heart of a city
or in the open air of farms
or suburban sprawl or jungle,
if he enjoyed reading or rebelled
against mathematics, had access
to regularly clean water, ate
pancakes at the breakfast nook
every Saturday morning.

Memories of him do not seem
to exist among those interviewed,
the people he might have kissed,
spoken to tenderly or angrily,
sung “American Pie” with at midnight
on a bleary-eyed summer road trip,
married, divorced, splashed
with pool water or soap bubbles,
shared a cubicle wall with,
been spoon-fed by, cradled,
or strolled down the lazy streets
of a Midwestern college town with
in search of an evening cappuccino,
bathed in breeze and second-story
music, arms swaying, hands locked
inevitably in place like the opposite
of nothing.