James Richardson is the author of numerous poetry collections, including By the Numbers: Poems and Aphorisms, Interglacial: New and Selected Poems and Aphorisms, and During, winner of the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award as the best book in progress. Among his honors are the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, the Emily Dickinson Award, and a Pushcart Prize. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and teaches at Princeton University.

Emergency Measures

by James Richardson

I take Saturday’s unpopulated trains,
sitting at uncontagious distances,
change at junctions of low body count, in off-hours,
and on national holidays especially, shun stadia
and other zones of efficient kill ratio,
since there is no safety anymore in numbers.

People on couch
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