Sonnet #381

 Take all your clever children teach them

Math and make them read the greatest books

And tell them that the future is their story, look

At all the amazing things you can be! Then,

Put them to work and nothing is possible

Suffer first, earn the right to scrub and toil

Smile on demand, authentically, too, boil

Water for ramen and make highways uncrossable

Sing them great love songs but give them no love

Tell them they’re never going to be able to do enough

Tell these brilliant children they’re never the stuff

That dreams are made of, and life’s hard, all the above

These children who were taught since birth to dream

And then march and die in someone else’s machine