The Foolish Hound’s Outing

The dog isn’t barking because
It’s out of control. The dog barks
In helpless acknowledgement that
There’s no controlling anything,

And still you try, you try, you try.
The dog barks in desperation.
It’s a beautiful day away
From the things people do to earn

Your fairy numbers from yourselves
That tell you what you can exchange
For more substantive services
And rather more substantive goods,

All the constrained, unpleasant things,
The repetitive, boring things,
The carefully measured, packaged
Things you’ve chained up to entrain you.

Some of you complain and blame this
On this or that, the government,
The libs, late capitalism.
None of you blame fairy numbers,

Magical, malignant beings
You should never have invented.
Sure, they make your world possible,
Your commodified existence

Of commodified labor and
Commodified attention spans
Running commodity markets,
All thanks to the fairy numbers,

But it’s too late. The first unit
Of counting, the first name exchanged
As countable, equal amounts
Was already commodified.

The smartest sheepdog champion
Listening for whistled commands
In these trials before the crowd
Can’t understand commodities

Or counting identical sheep
Lives as units—key to herding,
To exchanging fairy numbers
Pressed in clay tokens under seal,

Can’t understand how counting things
Led its ancestors to this life
On this green slope, dotted with sheep,
Above a cheering human crowd

Taking the day away from work
And earning their numbers to earn
Other people fairy numbers
Through tickets and concession stands.

Full of joy in its existence,
Following whistles, earning praise
From its whistler who earns numbers
As it splits and reseals the herd,

The wise sheep dog can’t understand,
But the desperate, foolish hound
Left in a locked pickup gets it.
There’s no controlling anything.