the cubicle where we daily toil, the demoniac cackling erupting

from the empty spaces down the hall, size of an in-box

crammed with memos and motions, size of the St. Louis Arch,

 

gateway to the West but also a gateway to hell. Hail the size of

any Bernoulli-Principle-lifted sphere, plane whose glazed-donut

wheels touch down in Dallas, where airborne semis cartwheel

 

like nimble batons in a Memorial Day Parade, like a drum majorette-

come-receptionist’s briefs, bills stamped URGENT; CONFIDENTIAL;

hail the size of our urgent, confidential grief, hail laughing

 

like a Three Stooges soundtrack on continuous loop, hail

like the masses in the market for more, bigger than the last

disaster parade battering BMWs, Buicks. Rams. Hail trampling

 

the twice-plowed fields, the newly-planted seedlings,

the plow-blade longing to shimmer with melting;

hail pelting tractor, trodden toiler, the defeated,

 

those a single glistening stone away from signing

over the farm to CONAGRA; hail, the spared barn

bursting with grain the color of a Louisiana scramble.

Latest posts by Martha Silano (see all)