Of One

It is the most boring number— a thin, sour preacher flagging in the second hour of an August sermon, an enraged father pounding on an anvil.

It is priapic but sterile, one tree remaining after clear-cut.

“One” wakes up drunk, snarls at the television. “One” demands compliance and calls it consensus. “One” complies. “One” is the arrow that killed the crow.