The Mystery of Statistics
in yellow lines that won’t
dry into symbol, paint
over the appeal for justice, naked limbs
not otherwise obscene, than to service
an abstraction, advertising
frames trimmed
with false gold that enshrines a future
we shouldn’t touch, as if sealed
behind glass, while, headphones
jacked up, the dignified voice
guiding us through the white museum
intones, all virtue
lies in counting, counting
up to virtue, counting up because
a detail means corruption, each particular
only a blotch: but look
how peacefully
the little bodies line up in rows
Poetic Diversity (November 2013).