psalm whatever
a song about parenthetic people

parenthetically speaking, there
are too many people pushed aside
who live as virtual (meaning actual,
not electronic), veritable
slaves in body, looking forward to
nothing because there is no hope of
the freedom of
self-determination

this is not abstract—there are slaves

do not miss this

those of us who do not matter or
who might be enemies of
more powerful people

as slaves they will not matter
beyond their usefulness in
the buyer’s interest in labor

and after that cannot be realized
they will not matter ever
again so is the attitude
of the thief of stealing lives
and the thief who buys

there are others, too, not so
obviously sold but
captive all the same

if I asked you what all this meant
I think you’d have an answer
not because you’re criminal

but because you’re thoughtful
you know of slavery of the past
and of the parenthetic people
who subsist, persist today
and not so far away