They called my number before dawn
I entered through a narrow hall
A clerk informed me I was gone
Although I stood before the wall
He searched the ledger twice, then frowned
And asked what year I ceased to be
I said I still was standing there
He closed the book and looked at me
One lamp burning
One vacant chair
I asked my question
Nobody cared
Tell me the crime and I will confess
Give me a sentence, give me an address
Show me the law that I betrayed
Show me the debt that must be paid
I can endure what has a cause
I can accept the judge, the laws
But how does any man atone
For being born and dying alone?
They sent me down another floor
Where every clock displayed the same
A guard was stationed by the door
He asked me to surrender my name
I asked him what would happen next
He shrugged and handed me a key
It opened nothing I could find
Perhaps the lock had swallowed me
One lamp burning
One vacant chair
I asked my question
Nobody cared
Tell me the crime and I will confess
Give me a sentence, give me an address
Show me the law that I betrayed
Show me the debt that must be paid
I can endure what has a cause
I can accept the judge, the laws
But how does any man atone
For being born and dying alone?
At noon they brought a glass of rain
And said my hearing had begun
No magistrate appeared that day
The windows stared into the Sun
I read the charge from end to end
One date remained upon the sheet
The day my mother gave me life
Above a space marked INCOMPLETE
I laughed
The clerk recorded it
I wept
He turned the page
I asked how long the trial would last
He wrote beside my age
At dusk they said that I could leave
I asked them where I ought to go
The clerk looked almost surprised
As though a man were meant to know
Outside, the avenue was bright
The cafés filled, the traffic ran
Someone was kissing in the rain
Beside an ambulance and van
A funeral crossed the avenue
A waiter cleared a table clean
A dying dog watched pigeons feed
Two lovers vanished from the scene
The traffic light returned to green
The evening papers had been sold
And somewhere in an empty ward
A woman's body had gone cold
Tell me the crime and I will confess
Give me the gallows, give me the cell
Give me one fact that I can curse
One guilty God, one universe
Give me a culprit I can hate
A crooked judge, a poisoned fate
Anything but this vacant throne
And being born and dying alone
I went back through the narrow hall
The clerk was putting files away
I asked if someone would eventually
Explain what happened there that day
He searched my face as if surprised
That I had come to ask again
Then reached behind him for my file
And calmly crossed me from the page
The streetlights flickered into life
A child ran laughing after rain
A hearse went slowly past the square
The cafés filled their cups again
I stood there longer than I should
No messenger appeared for me
No hidden chamber opened wide
No final witness disagreed
And when the morning came once more
They called another number in
The stranger entered through the door
The clerk asked where he had been