Poetry blog. This is a space to republish original poems and get them back into circulation, as well as for new observations.

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).