(For as long as it takes, Fringe is giving over its blog to original work inspired by the Occupy protests. Send your essays, poetry, short stories, artwork, photography and whatever else you’ve got, including questions, to FringeTheMagazine@gmail.com. See our full Occupy submission call here.)

In These Fluorescent Times

Buy shades, rose colored to return to some balance of light. Glare and flicker, reddened hands as though work were more than something we’ve outsourced. Fungible labor force, that’s what the brother-in-law said, as though it were something lovely, like ganache, or the moment you turn the lights out on a day that’s lasted far too long. How much carbon equals one candle-power? Hands out, the fungible wait beside the supermarket; but this is far from the one where the brother-in-law shops; he believes in keeping up, once put his mother’s old furniture out on the street when he moved her to the Cosmopolitan.

Occupation

Capitalism. Don’t be afraid of the word. Try it over
and over, until you no longer need to pass the cap
to pay for the beer and pizza. Consider orthography.

Preoccupation, the antonym of action, how many ants
trail through the kitchen. Get out, take a walk, look
at the action of trees in the afternoon breeze.

Each person standing here has an identity card,
that lists the wrong country; our papers
don’t declare what needs to be said: home.