The Weight of Paper

Preoccupation with bureaucracy
or better yet equation of my name
with what I deem another’s fate: no, these
don’t eat at me although a paperweight
collection by my indiscriminate
mail slot smothers anything that claims I owe
more than seventy-six ticks a minute
or my mother a visit and Jell-O mold.

Billing flamingos tinted in. A flowered
obelisk. Dark quartz with yellow veins.
Oval. Conical. The Eiffel Tower.
Bar charts. Additions. My stark minimums.
The Sphinx is always so quick
off its stack. I know when I am licked.

Copyright © 2008 Dan Kaplan All rights reserved
from Bill's Formal Complaint
The National Poetry Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission