From “Case Comparison”

How do I compare the costs

Of leaving one system

Of cooperation

For another

System of cooperation?

How do I loosen the tongue

Enough to inhabit

The temple incognito?

What are the people to me

Until I condense my hesitations

And drink in stillness with

The rest of us, slightly drunk

But pacing moderately

Around the dew, dropped

To the knees at a tepid hour?

Cooperation is free, or is it

So? A refugee has no terms

Of comparison. Who really is

Aggrieved is a real fugitive

To freedom. The only enemies

Of freedom are border agents

And those dozing on one side

Of the other. The border condition

Realizes the personality.

That is why it has to be

Negotiated again in public

Houses. I tried to be loved

And everyone else failed me.

The dew is a corrosive.

It’s only obvious once

The horizon tempers

The topography again.

And this is so only when

Earthlight can be confined

By the foreground.

Allegorists are not agents

Now so much as internet vernaculars

We all get our chance to innovate.

Nations cannot be explained

Otherwise. Someone, we,

Made up the whole thing.

I want us to think we were

Liars then but are dying to

Finally grow up, no longer

Following fictions. But

Perfectly flush corroborating

Rehearsals.

The students can always

Have the data

They deserve.

What is oligarchy?

They call it up

And it clicks.

(Hear the disconsolate

fizz of epiphany

pitched out of library windows

and welfare field office exits.)

Everything can be

Said to have

Occurred. But do

They describe themselves

As belated or latent?

The reveal is just a mild

Turning in

Any case.

The air in winter

Is best for your device.

Cordon it around your

Device’s appetite.

Or there will be

A disaster

For the recollection,

Proof by perdurable

Association. (Check

the custom, or costume,

that to learn is

a bargain first fixed

in the recognition of ignorance

for which the learned refuse

to serve as models.)

Students delay excitement

Just long enough

And then they know.

You are a student

By profession.

If you insist

You deserve

A livelihood

You will be

Persecuted

For this

And that is

What has become

Of forensics.

That is the

Rootless fact.

Its reason is

Untraceable, so

Its stolid justice proffers

Souls for history’s

Paltry set of names

Of strangers. To

Assimilate novelty

Is then to obtain inventory.

What will you do

With it all?

Won’t you enjoy

The leverage it provides

So as to insist

On more?

It is not data

But esteem.

That is the remaining

Root system,

That nothing will

Have to be

Enough.