I, who am neither the someone who was here
The moment before I spoke the line that I spoke
This instant past, nor the one who became the one
Who in the second line became a fictional
Someone who was talking to himself
About himself, step by iambic step
Stepping himself away from who he was,
And who he was doggedly following
The footsteps of him who isn’t who he was,
Doggedly sniffing the heels stepping away.
The ignorant heels of him who is stepping away
—David Ferry
David Ferry is a poet and translator whose many works include Bewilderment, Of No Country I Know, The Georgics of Virgil, and The Odes of Horace.
