POEM

Dementophobia The Lonely Life of a Scientist by Charles Baker
Posted May 25, 2001 · Issue 103

Drill sergeant memos,
Order me around, dictate
Where to go, what to do, who to see,

A stapler
Chews on paper, inserting fangs, then
Spitting it back out.

A tissue
Stabs the box it's in; pulling it out
Creates a fluid flow of whiteness.

Stickit notes
Glom onto everything, the
Yellow bacteria spread everywhere.

Erasers
Seek to eliminate the weak,
Rubbing them out, destroying past lives.

Pencils
Huddle in a cup, and
I join them; there's safety in numbers . . .

Charles Baker is a husband, a father, a teacher, a writer, and a juggler from Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. He enjoys writing both for children and adults, and is currently working on poetry and picture books for children. His work has been published in Prairie Poetry, Muse It, Jones Av., and a variety of other journals and news publications.

Julia Kuhl has done illustrations for the New Yorker and the New York Times, among others. She now lives in Heidelberg, Germany, with her neurobiologist husband and is working on a comic book - a Fulika atra (coot) version of Shakespeare's Hamlet.