A Finger Skyscraper, by Keith Gaboury
A Finger Skyscraper
I know I’m unremarkable.
I’m one of 8 billion human beings
all with a pulse
vibrating through limbed consciousness.
By my math, the Earth hosts
in the grasping range
of 16 billion eyes,
80 billion fingers,
8 billion heads.
Please inform me at once if you spot a 2 headed, 3 eyed and/or 20 fingered subhuman. I’ll alter my calculations. Even without a scoop of 20 fingered skinned shadows, 7.99 billion fingers
stacked together
makes a stratospheric
skyscraper. I’ll of course
keep my fingers
as a member of the Desirable Class.
Congratulate me! I’ve solved the global housing crisis. Every unhoused fleck will slip into a hand unit. Do you want a tour? On one end, a cracked thumbnail bed for sleeping and screaming
under a finger ceiling;
in the middle, a ring finger
where the small plop down
for uncivilized meals;
over in the corner,
a pinky
perfect for thin amusement.
Vote yes for the Finger Cut
Tax. From nail throwaway
to mansion king, 8 billion beings
need a home. I must revise myself:
I’m a remarkable king.
Keith Gaboury: By day, I work as a caffeinated preschool teacher with a sarcastic spine. By night, I write poetry, eat spicy food, and enjoy sarcastic time with my fiancé in Oakland, California. After I graduated with a MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston, I had to fly from a MFA fantasy into making money. Despite the flame-torched pay, I landed on a job as a preschool teacher. In 2016, I rode a dragon from Massachusetts to California. As this dragon's claws are now fixed into Oakland ground, I write poetry with personality, go on Lake Merritt runs without tripping into the water, and teach dragon kindness to preschool children.
