FAILURES

Sometimes failure is just failure and not
injustice. Nothing succeeds like success.

The ormolu of silicone or saline
in a breast presents a strident pageant

smile, but hides in its storeroom a heavy
downshift of anger over the world’s grave

condition. The heart becomes a cageling,
trilling Want Me in a den of its own

waste. Emetic outsiders achieve judge
status. To each according to his own

firing squad. Most savage crocodiles end
as tiny eggs, meals fit for butterflies

and blacksmith plovers. Most celebrities
got extra extra-rich milk when they were

young, studies show. There they go, emperor
penguins waddling down power corridors

of tube and screen. The way, in war, products
are consumed by violence, your faults get eaten

by those starved for triumph. A ludic bash
on sprinklered lawns, in offices and test

beds, springs march music on the players,
selecting those who stay in step. Elide

from the group photo this one. Let that one
hug herself. Subvert the normal urges.

Sometimes failure is just failure and not
injustice. Nothing recedes like success.