There Are Only 1,000 Numbats Left in the Wild by Christopher DeWeese

There Are Only 1,000 Numbats Left in the Wild

 

because what they need are quiet woods

where trees fall and nothing happens

the moss like a lake of no drowning

the birds like management in a factory

I don’t know

I know none of this should surprise me

in poetry class I write NUMBATS on the board

and the students look at their phones

they say ooh they’re so cute

and then they get sad about all the dying

on my Annual Faculty Report I write

developed new interdisciplinary pedagogy

under “routine service”

I send it to the dean

but my digital signature looks too big

when I paste it into the document

it lists just slightly to the left

like the diseased hedge in my yard

one question is should I spend two hours

figuring out how to make it right

my head like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

of figuring shit like that out

when my union went on strike

I was replaced by a poet from Linkedin

I stood outside in the Januaried wind

for three angry weeks

and my daughter said bosses stop this isn’t right

and then she wrote it on a sign

I tell my students that writing poems

might not be their career

but it still can be their life

and the dean sends me a note tied with red string

that says actually many CEOs majored in humanities

did I mention I’m being observed

did I mention that enrollment is down

did I mention I’m serving on six committees

the fact that anything grows anywhere

is one example of belief

my students keep looking at me

like they’re expecting me to help them

like it’s my job to help them

so I erase NUMBATS from the board

and instead I write MERITOCRACY

and my students look at their phones

and then they cry what do you mean