Police Status

People are forever
Attempting to control
Personal behaviors,

Both others’ and their own,
Their own in no small part
To lower the profile

Of their risk of being
Punished by the others
Who would police them, too.

Numerous promising
Strategies have been tried—
The individual

Exercise of restraint,
Filial piety,
Worship of ancestral

Models of probity,
Group mockery, shaming,
Ostracism, Ethics,

Little gods, bigger gods,
God who-sees-everything,
Straightforward police states,

Tiers of bosses and spies,
Prizes for reporting
Anyone out of line,

And so forth, and so on.
All the strategies work
At least some of the time,

And all are still in play,
As is brutality,
Which brute force can’t police.