but

we have less
than a necessary
stockpile or
we're in the lower
ninety percent or
there's chores to be done
or we don't have
child-minding
arrangements

hush hush hush hush hush hush

my thimbled
touch:

(
oh I have hives or the phone
rang or I'm sorry there's
all this feedback
)

and they may say
family farms fare better
when dropped
in a black box
equation

but we know
vigilance is combative
when we have the time

(
plug the television
with another quarter

the bus is late
)

we're expecting
the future
though we trudge
through the ungainly
though we're funnybone slow

living the
unleaven

(
don't worry about the hush
don't worry about this poem

don't worry about the dowager's gown
and her ease her clichéd wealth.
)

but everywhere a hush
says the cartoonist