Paper People

The paper browns before it burns;
the flames char black-
as certain as the world turns
and can never turn back.
We dustmote residents
heavy with rights and "last nights,"
belabored by explanations and
denied mysteries and myths,
argue for improved conditions,
blind to the point we've missed:
We're second-hand answers
to a wordless question;
scraped through the deadline
at a seeming impasse
with squeezed in margins
and extra footnotes for
effect. We will wither for our
crime in some celestial file
collecting dust.
We do because we must-
and in time this chinsy rhyme
will drift like ashes from the crime.

By Jason Paul Fox