If All Were Turned to Smoke

We have a new question
Written on dragon skin
With carbon filaments

Left behind by fireflies
That languish, extinguished,
Outcompeted by lamps—

Who wasn’t this person?
If every story asks
And tells who someone was,

What’s left for who wasn’t?
Who wasn’t this person?
A tone in atonal

Language? A voice in tune
With human emotion
That means nothing?

Is there any who who
Wasn’t a person, who
Was still a who but not

A personality?
Even God’s invested
With personhood—if not,

No one stays interested
In contributing faith.
Who wasn’t this person?

Well, that’s many questions,
Not one. What can one caught
Person say to someone

Who isn’t? Another.
Fragments of old pillars
And the occasional

Olive tree can be found
On the grounds where we write
These questions. Who isn’t?