Extras

All those who do not fit in well
Get scrap-heaped by eternity;
A grim determination, but
The uncompliant truth.
They flick by in some jumpy frames
Projected on our daily screens,
Almost indiscernible,
Hardly worth a "How d'ya do?":
The stock clerk in the housewares store,
The man who vacuums cars,
The girl who eats alone at lunch,
The woman who dapples stars
On top of your prepainted nails . . .
No storms of ticker-tape for them!
Birthday cakes and choruses
Of friends are ever-absent;
For them no shiva sits, nor prayer
Of kindly praise is spoken.
No bugle corps with banners
Have welcomed their arrivals
Or escorted their departures--
Only silence marks their time.
This multitude of worker ants
Lives on in drab obscurity,
Will drag off solitarily
When their exit's due.
Their roles retire with the play,
No printed program lists their names,
No doctor of antiquities
Will sift out ashes from the dirt
And label this one Jan or James;
They are but wrinkles in the sand.