on questions with no answers

1.

this business with poetry.  almost no wonder why 
poets were sent away from the republic.
all questioning that could, on any day, be meant
to mean subverting  what has been 
a long held belief.  e.g. the world is flat. 


2.

this city is connected to the others by two steel bridges.
mornings and evenings, people fall into long, long, long lines:
all in a hurry to leave at first light
all in a hurry to return by dusk fall.
they all curse under their breaths in between.


3.

in poetry reading class, the students' thoughts
are thick like fabric.  the professor has opened
a window, has let something in: 
postmodernism:  a poem in footnote form;
gender theory:  a poem on the satire of normative roles;
philosophy:  a poem on memory's palimpsestic quality.

the students' thoughts
clutch their bibles, reciting verses.

not one of them has ever seen a firefly.