In the snapshot of a crowd,
my head’s seventh from the edge,
or maybe fourth from the left,
or twenty-eighth from the bottom;
my head is I don’t know which,
no longer on its own shoulders,
just like the rest (and vice versa),
neither clearly male nor female;
whatever it signifies
is of no significance,
and the Spirit of the Age
may just glance its way, at best;
my head is statistical,
it consumes its steel per capita
globally and with composure;
shamelessly predictable,
complacently replaceable;
as if I didn’t even own it
in my own and separate way;
as if it were one skull of many
found unnamed in strip-mined graveyards
and preserved so well that one
forgets that its owner’s gone;
as if it were already there,
my head, any-, everyone’s—
where its memories, if any,
must reach deep into the future.