There Are Only 1,000 Numbats Left in the Wild Christopher DeWeese because what they need are quiet woods where trees fall and nothing happens the moss like a lake of no drowning the birds like management in a factory I don’t know I know none of this should surprise me in poetry class I write NUMBATS on the board and the students look at their phones they say ooh they’re so cute and then they get sad about all the dying on my Annual Faculty Report I write developed new interdisciplinary pedagogy under “routine service” I send it to the dean but my digital signature looks too big when I paste it into the document it lists just slightly to the left like the diseased hedge in my yard one question is should I spend two hours figuring out how to make it right my head like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of figuring shit like that out when my union went on strike I was replaced by a poet from Linkedin I stood outside in the Januaried wind for three angry weeks and my daughter said bosses stop this isn’t right and then she wrote it on a sign I tell my students that writing poems might not be their career but it still can be their life and the dean sends me a note tied with red string that says actually many CEOs majored in humanities did I mention I’m being observed did I mention that enrollment is down did I mention I’m serving on six committees the fact that anything grows anywhere is one example of belief my students keep looking at me like they’re expecting me to help them like it’s my job to help them so I erase NUMBATS from the board and instead I write MERITOCRACY and my students look at their phones and then they cry what do you mean -- p2: defenestrate --

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