Parcel

by Philip Berry

Paper softens, a damp corner
Torn in the violence of lost years
Lifted to a sinister eye
Sees night within, doubts clustered

Weightless calculations bent
By unnatural law, civilised by passage
Through penitent hands
Paper reeks now, sweat

Of men of women who worked
And were happy to work
On tabletops, punching buttons
Into the floor, skin tight over

Skulls that could not reckon
A world where truth sinks
In legal tongue, behind cool glass
The corporate wall.