In a Bottle


Into the lake lap glittering with
Mercuries and paint-removers, one duck drives
Its fledge-wake down along its own

Diminishments of rush, to end stock-still at the arrowhead’s
Tip. The other never was symmetrical, or flew. Made out
Of waste, topped with a quicket of hedge, a hill appears

Where no hill ever was before. It grows and grows. It grows
Till tillers tire, it grows till the king’s dumb come
Done gone. (That lyre should be

Administered a serum! Every last lackluster mist,
Each lactose-lacking mother, can be fixed! No fear!) From human
City rooms a mush of doctorable suburb issues forth–degrees

In marrow-clog, amounts in mottlement. Kreme de la
Kreme! (Officially OK for all of us to be superlative, I’m pretty
Sure, as long as the kids take all their tele-tablets

And the wellness store takes spelling
From the FCC. It’s thanks to lawyers
We have settlements at all, of course,

And thanks to governors your class in governmentalese–it is
Required–and wired!–let’s give our nation’s CEO a great
Big hand! A chip for every memory loss and shoulder! No need

Ever to recollect, or be alone, or die. The message is
The middleman!) But now, beneath exclamatory notice
(although not the one duck’s jaundiced eye) three bugs in a bottle–

Their brains unwashed, their feelers fine–begin (with
Morseless expertise) to conjugate,
And multiply.





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