Doomed by the Numbers

by Gloria Mindock


It was all a matter of time.
The decision was made.
For me, it was over.

How many days left in this saga?
Until the days spill into one another?
Blackout.

It is like the final curtain call
except I didn’t get a final bow,
a standing ovation, cheers saying, bravo!

Instead, just another human being, disintegrating
into nothingness, who everyone thought too morbid.
That is good.

The fact is people will still go on brutally
killing each other.
Who will take my place and write about it?

By now, you should have realized, we are numbers.
The pills you have been given won’t keep you alive.
They have destroyed me and as my organs fail,
I can see the CEO of the insurance company
going on a boat cruise laughing.


* * * * *

What If God is Strict is part of Gloria Mindock's poetry collection Ash (Glass Lyre Press, 2021).

Gloria Mindock is the author of Ash (Glass Lyre Press), I Wish Francisco Franco Would Love Me (Nixes Mate Books), Whiteness of Bone (Glass Lyre Press), La Portile Raiului, translated into Romanian by Flavia Cosma (Ars Longa Press, Romania), Nothing Divine Here (U Šoku Štampa, Montenegro), and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson St. Press). Widely published in the USA and abroad, her poetry has been translated and published into eleven languages. Gloria is editor of Červená Barva Press and was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018.