By: Lynn White

These people here,
those people there.
What do they know.
What do they care.
What will touch their little lives,
to move them, shake them,
disarrange them.

What will pinch them,
wake them,
make them
sit up,
stop their begging
doglike, cringing.

I don’t know
what it will take
to shake them up,
to make them fizz
and pop
out of their straight jacket.