Nobody Too
by Alan Greenwood


You, dear Emily, when I said my name was Nobody,
it was playing the trickster with that rude goat herder
Polyphemus, so when that whimpering Cyclops blared
to his uncouth kin, none would pay him mind.

You, on the other hand, revealed a different intent
for dubbing yourself as that particular one.

My motive was a sinister plot to deceive and prevail
over might—through guile. Yours, to group yourself
with the other nobodies who will never reach my myth.

You—a true, lonely traveler, unnoticed ‘til you met my mother
in that dark space you often pondered; you empathizing
with the others, whose journeys never touch the heroic

Me—sailing with my hearty men who trusted my counsel
through Scylla and Charybdis—when none but I knew
all would perish to a man, before I achieved the hero’s journey.

You lived disregarded in your lifetime—when even you scoffed
at your imminent celebrity—alone, staring at that long lawn
in your Ithaca, which—in your wisdom—you never abandoned.






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