Poem: Accountant

The following poem, “Accountant,” appeared in print in a bittersweet way. You can find it in the last regular issue of Mannequin Envy:

http://mannequinenvy.com/crittenden.html

Mannequin Envy is a fantastic journal, headed up by Jennifer Van Buren. It will release one last special “best of” issue sometime this Spring and then cease to publish. I was very honored and even touched to get this acceptance. Adding to the joy, my poems were placed alongside those of Arlene Ang, one of my favorite poets of all time.

I emailed back and forth with Editor Van Buren a while ago, and she said that Mannequin Envy might re-appear someday. It’s a great loss to the online literary world to see it end, but Van Buren and other editors who pour their soul into their zine aren’t getting paid. They are seldom thanked by writers, who are often focused on pubs and don't appreciate those who make the poetry world a beautiful place.

If you have time, read some issues of Mannequin Envy and email Editor Van Buren your thoughts and feelings. Nominations are still open for the final ‘Best Of’ issue. You’ll feel good about it, and you’ll be giving a very worthy person much deserved praise.


OWL

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Accountant

the aching lack of quiet
in his fidgety eyes,
which dust spreadsheets for hours,
striving to cleanse the last contrary motes—
this is what replaced
spirited battles with mastodons,
and he feels castrated by the change,
sterilized beneath the shaved jawline
of his mathematical analysis of nothing.

for that is what
penny and dollar signs are:
squiggles and scintilla.
and the numbers after them
just teeth in keys of ink,
a way to open illusory gates.
everyone must walk through those gates,
forgo unsmeared stars
to inhale equations born in a lining
of muffler puke.

there’s magic in the little numbers,
and his bittersweet fingers
cater to them fast.
to please them is to bed
one half of god, to decrypt any question
except the one which suggests
that the numbers themselves

lie.