Insubstantial

by Brett Rutherford

A post-election dream acrostic

[I]nvisible you are not, although at times
     and in some company, you could
           prefer to be.
[N]onexistence is not an option
     for an existent being, while
[S]ublimation from solid to vapor,
     as in a lightning strike or
     the unwished-for encounter
          with a mushroom cloud,
     might be a possible exit.
[U]nknown, unseen, and undiscovered,
     a status preferred
          for certain unhappy peoples
               up the Amazon
     (bulldozers and buzz-saws
          coming their way!); to sink
[B]elow the notice of bureaucrats
     and the ardent young militias,
     like centipedes beneath a carpet,
          night be a prudent ploy.
[S]maller is better, minute is better still,
     and minuscule is not quite there:
     try sizing yourself to nano, when
[T]error is a state, along with Texas and Florida,
     where it is better not to leave one’s house at all.
[A] is no longer a winning grade, the best —
     with such a surname one gets
          to the top of those lists of enemies,
     and if that letter falls at the end of it,
          you alien, you, so much the worse.
[N]ullity, when you are assigned a string
     of numbers no way resembling
     ones given to your snatched-away children,
     is the empty set of exiles and strays.
[T]otalitarian, the one six-syllable word
     you’d rather not pronounce, and which
          you never thought to thumb
     a glossary for, until the books were gone;
[I]gnorance being preferable to knowing
     that for the end of everything
          you have yourself to blame;
[A]bsent a conscience, the robot stumbles, aims
     a random gun at a random target: you
[L]oser in DNA’s long game of dice — who
     do you think you are, you speck
         in the howling cosmos? you,
              a gray, deluded dust-mote
                   for whom no god has ever bled.
        Cinder in a shroud of ash, you are
              [ INSUBSTANTIAL.]