Pastoral

Not our lives but the wares we sell, Not our faces but our masks, Not our own voices, not our real bodies, Not our names, but the brands we bear. What we become in a vast alien time Is how we are known to our fellows. Not what we are but what we show, Not our deep needs, not our real fears, Not as we hurt but as we are hailed. All we parade in the vast alien time, All we have polished up for sale, As if we are pieces of earthenware.