Seen from the paid-for
taxicab on the way
to the paid-for flight,

this is our preparation for
the world, which insists
on employment, which insists,

if you want adults
to take you seriously,
that you have to make somebody

pay. We are untrained
to manage even the pace
at which we live. Slow down at the last red light,

its monochrome certainty ordinary
for it, but never for us,
though it swings on wires nearly within human reach;

behind it, as they do
almost every day at this hour,
impregnable metal containers dissolve in the sky.

Original appearance in Slate

. Visit the site to hear Burt read the poem.