to the Elizabethan poet Thomas Dekker ("to add to golden numbers golden numbers...")
I am a number or a series of numbers
in someone's report, file, analysis
data compiled of the waves goodbye
and the reasons reasoned why of
generalities poorly understood, understated
colorless, faded from
the apricot nomenclature
on the run
the aqua tinted illustration no longer
blenched to a blanker page in a diffident age in invisible ink
or what they think resigned, confined
when all the results are in, the votes counted
the games of let's pretend discounted
I am a mere tick of the box
a heart without locks
that can be raided at will
by those who stoke their tills
and lack for no skill in robbing me
of any soul at all
and I do not know the writing on the wall
exactly when, how, or where
God will dispose of them
who think of me not as a person
rare, exceptional
but just fair game for
forever counting me over and over, out
in the rain
but I hope it is soon
and somewhere where
they can't find me
and resume the census
mary angela douglas 21 may 2017
I am a number or a series of numbers
in someone's report, file, analysis
data compiled of the waves goodbye
and the reasons reasoned why of
generalities poorly understood, understated
colorless, faded from
the apricot nomenclature
on the run
the aqua tinted illustration no longer
blenched to a blanker page in a diffident age in invisible ink
or what they think resigned, confined
when all the results are in, the votes counted
the games of let's pretend discounted
I am a mere tick of the box
a heart without locks
that can be raided at will
by those who stoke their tills
and lack for no skill in robbing me
of any soul at all
and I do not know the writing on the wall
exactly when, how, or where
God will dispose of them
who think of me not as a person
rare, exceptional
but just fair game for
forever counting me over and over, out
in the rain
but I hope it is soon
and somewhere where
they can't find me
and resume the census
mary angela douglas 21 may 2017
