Evenly Distributed

The solitary genius,
Being mad of course, being
Utterly solitary,

Found the outsider’s way in
To solve the unsolvable
From a naïve perspective.

What went into the water
In supplies around the world,
Who knows, who will ever know?

It worked. Everyone helped out,
Building global hospices,
Beds supplied with food and drugs

To get everyone ready
While they all shut down the world,
A barn-raising in reverse.

Then everyone went to bed
And received the dream of dreams,
A cozy catastrophe

For everyone separately,
For everyone equally,
Deep inside their dreaming heads.

Each woke up after the end
Of the world in a new world
Dreaming everyone was gone

But them alone, survivors
Of the great apocalypse,
Everyone their own Crusoe,

Dreaming in their own Matrix
Their own Day of the Triffids,
Or whatever most thrilled them,

From the Hopkins Manuscript
Clear to Wittgenstein’s Mistress,
And no one had to witness.