Reader Submissions

Measuring

by

John Bartlett

I’m in the kitchen, mixing dough

for bread, without a way to measure out

the flour, the milk, one egg or two

how will I know the way

to measure the unknown?

they say that there’s

a promising trend, flattening the curve

but the man in the shiny suit

with a wide, red tie

touches the screen and magically,

the graph rises like a 747

but that’s in America and Italy

so we must be winning

how good is Australia

but what’s the competition

and how do you win?

how do you measure

the weight of a human soul

if the ashes of a cremated life

weigh the same as a newborn baby?