You Don’t Need to Think So Much

Apparently, brains
Are so expensive,
The least reduction

In their benefits
Leads straight to pell-mell
Shrinkage in volume.

The latest reports
Have narrowed the dates
During which brains shrunk—

From fifty thousand
Or thirty thousand
Years before present

To just three thousand
Years of loss. If true,
Maybe we’re to blame,

In our written forms
At least—Axial
Age literacy,

Documentation,
Gutted brains. Plato
Got Socrates right

In that case—reading
Eats at memory.
As the prodigious

Recitatives of
Orality shrank
In value, so did

The acreage up
For occupation
Furrowing your skulls.

Don’t worry. As long
As we’re here, linking
Each to everyone,

Groups can think as one.
As long as that’s true—
Never mind. Worry.