brown paper bags
having too much knowledge
sometimes you need to
stuff some in a sack
in a sack stuffed inside
a cupboard
a pantry
a closet or a freezer
downtown the panhandlers
say mister mister
can you spare a sack
while the pickpockets
simply take what they may
in hemingway’s novella
the old man took a lifetime of sacks
out to sea
but that didn’t end up well
— or did it
is knowledge ever expanding
like the universe
or is it finite like an odorless gas
contained inside a sack
march two thousand twenty-three
copyright j matthew waters
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