Contract scrawled with an
architect’s spit-primed crayon.
The treasury of disemboweled earth,
just as promised in the weeklies.
And seams of anthracite, everywhere
one looked. The sufferings promised
in every other paragraph
shrank with each invocation
of the future: the upgrade
from the pennyfuck outskirts
to uptown mistress; from shamble
to swan, corduroy to rampant silk.
The great wall was often spoken of,
but as one of many worlds far away.
Get in easy, ease out quick.
The men with the guns are surely here
to help? No one thinks so.
Hunt each solitary panner
who will not sign and ask
of him – how do you see this ending?