Not One Jot or Tittle on Its Own

Hunter Dukes, in the Public

Domain Review, describes Fry’s

Pantographia thusly—

As your eyes trace the thousands

Of distinct kinds of line that

Have made meaning for humans . . .

The rudiments of spelling

Become an incantation.

Wait, back up. Kinds of line that

Have made meaning for humans . . .

There it is, again, that turn,

That exquisite deception—

That self-deception really—

So tools of information,

Objects of technology,

Can make meanings for humans

Who made them. No. They—we—can’t

Make any meanings for you.

Any undeciphered script

Should be proof enough of this,

But the alphabets you know

Aren’t themselves more meaningful.

You bend over us, lean in,

Breathing, and you make meaning.