He walks through

the carcasses of their vanished lives,
picking up the shards of their
workaday afternoons and
running his rude hands
over their intimate
confessions.
He is a god watching them
from their flowing birth
to their incontinent death,
judging them at every turn.
He will speak for them;
they can lodge no protest,
nor offer their own plea bargain.
He will hold them up to the light,
thinking that he has exposed all,
never realizing that they
were clever enough
to slip through his fingers
before he even knew
who they were.