Iron Mtn

We threw the boxes of the dead
onto shelves to heap more boxes
like the cornerstones of a temple
whose architects a dynast buries
once they reveal their floor-plans,

boxes to crush boxes underneath
until the seams of the boxes split
never mended with tape enough
to fit the name-space allotted them
on the numbers-cruncher’s database

shelves as weighty as the classics
and the books about great books--
unless you were a caterpillar
who could chew through the paper
and secrete a cocoon or a path.

Who knew if the fat scroll
bursting through kraft paper,
someone’s mechanized blueprint,
wasn’t all remaining of a vision
of more iron mountains on earth?

Names and numbers for the dead,
and floor-plans for more buildings
to house more names and numbers
could not be shelved fast enough
for the district numbers-cruncher,

shoulders hunched like a Minotaur
while on break he spun yarns
about vengeance to the traitor,
how to make their murder
seem a mugging gone wrong.

The fortunes of the lucky man
who made his bundle from thin air
without a shot or puff of smoke
with some paper shredders and fire
rose on mountains we helped build

although the doc. destruction truck
carted our product to shredders
that turned the names to straw.
Not quite turning water into wine,
we turned the numbers into money.