My Names (from a prompt by Curtis Meyer)

I never knew the name
“Tom Delaney”
but I’m sure there was a “Tom Delaney”
who did something for me I should know about,

just as I’m sure there’s a “Diego Sandoval”
in history who provided me with something
I need to be here, and a “Shamara Patel”
who saved an ancestor through some incidental effort,

a “Obiwahi” whose atoms still course my lungs,
a “Maria The Seer” who gave some great-great-great-
great-great-great grandmother a glimmer of hope
for a good love match, a “Thog Arm-Carrier”

who defended his genes and therefore mine
against some depradation or raid.  I don’t know most names
of those who got me here.  I have my short list
of family and friends, the longer list the teachers

insisted I should know, the odd names of those
who have popped up in varied reading and listening.
When it comes to it, at last, I ought to know
the names of everyone who has ever lived —

but I can’t.  I call them, instead, nothing
at all.  I call them “Anonymous.”  I call them 
namelessly, and shamelessly, every time I take credit
for simply being here by stating the name I carry

when asked, “Who are you?” as if it was enough to say
“Tony Brown.”  I ought to see them in the three syllables
that proclaim my survival.  I ought
to fall to my knees crying out for them in praise.