A bureaucrat can still sit
at his desk,
ruffle papers,
look out the window,
take his coffee with cream
and two sugars.
He can even take
a walk in the park
at lunchtime,
relax on a bench,
feed pigeons.
Everything is numbers.
This many dead of that.
A figure for collateral damage.
A total for body bags.
Convert the adults
into algorithms.
Round the children
up or down
to the nearest thousand.
Everything is numbers…
and that includes everybody.