Dream Job

I ask if computers can do this and receive
a shrug from the chief assistant’s heavy-
shouldered dress. How I got here is
a matter for debate. I notice the dreamy tilt
of the workspace, the angle of a nameplate.
I request more coffee and scrap paper.
When summing the number of cobblers
in a nineteenth century register of wills,
I suffer an actuarial spill. An invoice
from the Congo parses a shipment
of rubber. Iron ore goes back and forth.
After lunch, though I don’t recall eating,
the repartee of paperwork intensifies:
letters to file from Norway where Hansen’s
patients pray in their own dark chapel;
mission statements of imperial clans;
suffragette leaflets declaring the infinity
of womanhood. Much of my occupational
context is railroad stock or Pennsylvania
crude. Hour upon hour, in an itchy shirt
that conjures the shock of sweat, I retabulate
the axioms of a long-dead economist; I distribute
topnotch anecdotes to refute the people’s rage.


Vacation Bible Camp

          I take human wisdom / and turn it into nonsense
          Isaiah 44:25

The apostles, deadpan but ribald, cited examples in Aramaic.
Our bible is Dixie imported from the Crown, with triggers
among the aphorisms. We guess which acolytes are queer
and celibate. A certain item found under a cot blushes the
youth minister. If He created the goldfinch and the innertube,
why not self-cleaning underwear? We know His retorts
change the climate. His deer ticks entrap us, take custody of
health. And His kindness toward horses and basketball
distracts us from happenings beyond the trees. Beneath a
consternation of stars, we stoke a campfire with lip-synced
song. The gospel of the cling-free moon eludes us. Forbidden
to handle ourselves, what must we do with our hands?