By the Number

by Brett Rutherford

knocked down to size

by thirty-four verdicts,

what shall we call him?

 

not forty-five,

those numerals kerned

into a near swastika,

 

not even the ever-

diminishing length

of what, to him,

meant "huge"

 

now he's just two,

the number,

child's signal

of toilet urge

 

and then just one,

an amorphous heap

of tangerine excrement