One Hundred court stenographers,
each trained by
the same online course,
(recorded in a basement in Lincoln, Nebraska)
race to input
the full lyrics of
“Ice, Ice, Baby”
in an attempt
to crown a valedictorian.

God’s marble collection,
One Hundred of them,
spill from the vase
of plastic flowers
in which she stores them,
(God obviously being a sixty-four year old
woman with Princess Diana’s hair
as reflected in her home decor)
clatter down granite stairs,
a stampede of aggies and cat eyes.

One Hundred ordinary gray mice
learn ballet
(lacking the rhythm
necessary for tap)
and congregate on a June afternoon
to recite
on the corrugated roof
of a Little League dugout.

One particularly observant mockingbird,
hearing the three hundred,
calls back, reproducing
the sound of raindrops
wetting the shingles above
my attic bedroom.