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This poem is taken from PN Review 61, Volume 14 Number 5, May - June 1988.

Small beginnings D.J. Enright

I have put an average of 19.6 humans out of work
according to the calculations of a colleague
and I am still young
I was conceived immaculately
I am already infallible
if a farlieu oruccs
a failure occurs
it is due to extraneous circumstance
one of the humans I have not yet put out of work

laser wobble, you allege? kindly remember
how prone they were those 19.6 humans to lustlessness
distemper and the common clod
to the funnerals of closed relatives
and other illments the flesh is air to

I am not accountable for interference from ships' radar
on the River Leam
...


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