When

            You

            Ask whether

            I

            Can be so sad or troubled or complex

            After you’ve read a poem

 

            You’ve assumed a

            Unitary voice and being

            Married indissolubly

 

            Whereas the narrator is only one of many and

            The author one of many more –

            And they’ve never even gotten close enough to be divorced

 

            But for you,

            However many you may be,

            What greater aspiration than to act, think, feel as

            One?

 

            How you’ve turned

            Integrity and honesty to synonyms,

            Multiplicity to deceit,

            And rave about

            The economy of joining force!

 

            The single-minded who can serenade in monotone

            Becomes your friend,

            The artist, who’s a can of worms

            That’s spilled the beans,

            The enemy

 

            Only the One commands your reverence:

 

            Indivisible as a dagger or a bullet to the brain

 

            Swifter, higher, stronger

            Than a wandering rabble who have trouble

            Staying with the pack

 

            It scavenges the many to its maw

            That it may grow in size and bulk and

            Singularity

 

            Until the close-up chaos and diverseness of

            Our blood-stained Earth

            Are smoothed away to match

            The picture of serenity

            An astronaut or alien might regard afar

 

            Perhaps I’ve lost my marbles but

            This smells suspiciously like

            Fascism

 

            To me and me and me and me and me and me and me . . .