Poet Jesse Mavro Diamond has a visit with Socrates and Gertrude Stein and tells us about it.

SOCRATES ON PROFESSORS ROW

I meet him, latte in hand, walking past the Library.

Socrates, I say, how are you?

How are you? He answers.

Good, I say.

What is Good? He asks. Tell me for I am filled with wonder and have nothing to do.

Right then I know he has me clutched in his metaphoric hands,

those flesh, muscle and bone impressions of two huge question marks.

I say:

Listen, Dear Socrates, Time is short.  I can only define Good by what it is not. They are coming for you now, right now and they will imprison you, they will give you the lethal cup, they will say, here, drink this, Man who has corrupted not only our youth but also our entire society with your insane questioning. Socrates! Do not take a sip of that drink! We need you. More than ever. You have shown us, their truth is merely a matrix of Cycloptic eyes, a swamp of electrically wired elephant grass, tangled around and around our throats!

      Dear, student, he says, I have already drunk it.

And right there, I fall to my knees, eyes shut, weeping, as close to prayer as an atheist can possibly be. I feel his hand on my head and he says,

What do you want to know before I go?

Why must men be so grasping, so fearful, so wrapped in their leopard skins?

Why can’t we stop recording each other, start listening to each other, stop killing each other, start loving each other? Is philia dead, Socrates? Is it vanquished forever?

But Socrates fell and was gone. In his place lay Gertrude Stein. So I lay down beside her, our bodies spooning question marks. And sorrow closed about my soul like handcuffs wrought in steel parentheses.

Then I realize I am standing, cup of soy latte in hand. Strangers blanket the sidewalk. One passes and I ask,

How are you?

Good she says.

What is good? Tell me for I am filled with wonder and have nothing to do.

— Jesse Mavro Diamond

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