Sunday's daily poem (6/21/09)

Instructions for a calm society

Destroy this before they read it.
Destroy it as soon as it makes sense to do so.
Destroy the fact that it existed, the ideas that make it sing,
the evidence, like the mangled flesh of chipmunks out on Holmes Street.
Destroy the history that goes with it.
Destroy all its artifacts, the little tales found in winter around woodstoves,
the praises for it sung in churches where the women fan themselves with vigor
while the men sit still as death trying not to sweat and the children lift
their buttocks one by one to feel the slow strip of damp cotton off of wood.
Destroy the middle of the night in shelters, so no one can wake to wonder if it’s true.
Destroy the sun’s long shadows either side of noonday.
Destroy the inside of the mouth where darkness makes a safe
for words we’d rather not hear spoken— the larynx with its little minnow trap of bones.
Destroy all pens and inks
so the paper remains blank and pure.