Proxy

Upon us falls a silence,

Stillness, sigh.

Rustle of a messenger

Bag, a squeak of seat

Ping of a pen on the collective

Linoleum, a soft cold hum

Of a cruel air duct.

Surrounded by brains, I see not within

These skulls as they tick and

Sort through those manila files.

Worlds travelled in the flutter of a page

In moments, a thousand words written

Unoriginal and canned without salt

For a number.

Nothing of gain, water to tread

For a number.

Quantify my mind and perchance

It will hold more weight on the autopsy scale.

Marvelous cerebral hue of gray

Means that I understood World War II

And how to find the vertical component of momentum.

My brain is within a skull

Within a box

With many other cerebellums

All the same sticky gray

Within a system of walls.

I am a proxy cube.