[Newspoetry] The Runners-Up

[Rick Burkhardt]

If we catch a fish, sir, then we'll eat
-- otherwise, we'll look great
in the unexplained though wildly applauded
musical number, complete with choreographed childrearing,
in which everything proves itself visible
to the sleeping shark.

The winners eat their young
in order to stay young,
the cars construct their workers to do the same,
and ultimately the winners eat their cars
and are the youngest yet.

When the tune restarts,
the lovestruck good and bad cops drive off together
in a heartshaped cloud of state-sponsored populism,
having failed to harass
our other identities.

Will the owner of the new Ford Impala, not built since the
1950s, with the license plate that says
we've known the contents of the envelope
since before we were born, since before
anyone was born, please admit to something, anything.