And Still (poem)

And Still

And still, they know nothing of laying pipes, or stacking bricks

They would be curious and agog at these

Shyly confer upon themselves nobility

Of feeling, of sensitivity

To let the layers lay and the stackers stack

And still, they know nothing of policing streets

Certain they have not and none they know

Conversance with criminality

Not them by duty called to boggle eyes

at the unpleasant task

Offerings of invisible hands turn up

like bundles from the mailroom fall

thwacking the inbox

To be deplored or marveled at

And still

Under pinpoint pupils smiles break in dire bitchery

They’ve been taught, these seminarians, you own your enemy

Gained this nametag mind from adolescent books of fantasy

The Lord of Darkness vanishes, he does, when you call him by his name

Faugh!

Darkness it is not, this worm in the machine

only the rattling loose of nuts and bolts

Making drivers duck their heads and grin in fear

Give obeisance with their hands

Making workers shrink, averse to the face-smack

“You’ll have to fix that, won’t you? Don’t bother me

with your work half-done.”

And leaving the alarm bell, closing the closet door, and clocking out

And Still

Harvest

(2018, Stephanie Foster)