The Daily Corporate Zombie March

In the soft morning light, I see them walking

slowly towards the dark subway station. Dead

potential, a long line of Japanese salarymen

all dressed in dark blue or black suits, white

shirts, dark ties, dead-eyed and resigned.

Those thirty and over, I see it in their defeated eyes,

the fallen baseball star, the crushed manga artist,

the Judo master too beat up to make the Olympic team.

But it in the young, twenty-two, fresh from college; that a

small living flame scorching its way towards freedom

still cries out in the morning crush,

“I will find a way out of this!”