By Rico Craig
In the bleakest of hours
statistics turn into a vision machine of birth and death
and people start talking about dollars
dry-humping the exponentials of superannuation.
Our visionaries are bespectacled, paunchy and unable
to comprehend heartbeats.
There are economists wrapping
their tongues in foil,
they’re calling the sky purple
and telling us to invest in the truth.
Interest is secure, dollars multiply.
It has nothing to do with chance,
everything is organisation
and logistics.
Futures are spiders made of air
they bind whole worlds,
bricks and mortar are carried by steam;
and when we sleep it is on water.
Rico Craig is a teacher, writer, and award-winning poet whose work melds the narrative, lyrical, and cinematic. Craig is published widely; his poetry collection BONE INK was winner of the 2017 Anne Elder Award and shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in 2018. To find his recent writing, visit https://ricocraig.com/, and follow him on Instagram @rico_craig and Twitter @RicoCraig.