Late Fee
It’s just me and wild life
trading blows for bantams
in the batting cages. I’ve
so little money left
I’m doing Human Intelligence
Tasks for fractions
of a penny each, like eating
a few pieces of wet rice
that fell midstride on top
of a shoe. You think
I’m ready for the big time,
Mr. Eland, just wait
until you’ve seen me
deduplicate data,
transcribe a little video
a family sitting down
to dinner together, white
plates of greens
beneath their silver forks
[heavy breathing]
[inaudible]
OOAK
The guy doing the executions today
is still learning. When he can’t find a vein
people lean in close to him, all in
the learning stance. When he graduates
& his learner’s permit is converted
(like pyrite into gold
bullion by the expert alchemist, showing
a student the way) into a license to kill,
when he can finally put away his
training set of mirrors—
the clarinet sonatina plays through
on Side B without a pop or skip
& every body finds its specific gravity,
turns over all the rocks, greets the worms
***
Tom Snarsky‘s book Reclaimed Water comes out soon from Ornithopter Press.
***
image: Amateur photographer and author Andrea Damic (Sydney, Australia) has words published or forthcoming in 50-Word Stories, Paragraph Planet, The Dribble Drabble Review, 50 Give or Take (Vine Leaves Press) Anthology, Spillwords, The Centifictionist, The Piker Press and elsewhere with her art featuring or forthcoming in Rejection Letters, Door Is A Jar, Fusion Art’s Exhibitions, Welter at the University of Baltimore and elsewhere. You can find her on TW @DamicAndrea or linktr.ee/damicandrea.
Rejection Letters 