Daniel Morris

May the State

 

May the state go blind to the risk of our

fetching that most archaic of abstractions:

a sentimental gent who disappears to settle credit debt.

 

May the state recognize our growling guts as more

than major molecules within the minority report or

unmovable crowds endangering the family way.

 

May the state recall two lasting lessons of the good old deal: 

(1.) We never equates to Us.

(2.)There are no accidents when it comes to crowd behavior.

 

May the state pledge not to arm Ananke’s amazons for our

impending emergency, but circulate inspired actuaries

who, like uninsured poets, shall imagine the impossibility of

our single human mind securing enough bodies to go around.

 

May the state we seek refrain from iatrogenic volatility.

Put another way, may the state worry more about us after the disastrous dunk

 than rehearsing our cheer before the buzz of regulation time.

 

May we the citizenry accept the state as that dangerous friend we invited to the local pub

         before last call.

May we celebrate, rather than mock, the buying friend we brought.

 

May the state embrace the concept that even minor change in the right pockets

       is a kind of money that cannot only cry, but can help us circulate among ourselves

       without immediately thinking of any blood type besides o-negative.

 

May the state absorb my prayer precisely to the degree my art ignores your abject sympathy.