When it is finished
This book will be a work of art
Each page full
Of sketches inspired by shapes
Of the alphabet
Each two or three pages

Spawn of 840 pages
of a Bill I have yet to finish
reading. Instead, these permutations of the alphabet
Become the chef d'oeuvre
Of my summer, shaped
By the fulfilling

Work of lobbying for a cause full
Of 1480 pages
of legislation, shaped
by the unfinished
dream of the ultimate masterpiece
of children writing their own ABC's

and Bills. I absorb alphabetically
Names of a full
Congress working on a team art
project, producing pages
<ding> and pages <ding>, speaking and voting until their work is finished,
as our education system takes shape.

Reauthorizing, Reshaping,
Realphabetizing,
Refinishing,
Refilling,
- Filling pages,
Notebooks and binders transformed into art.

If a blank canvas is art,
Or the arresting shapes
Of Ellsworth Kelly, then so too are these messy pages
- stacks of letters,
parallel blue lines filled
With darker lines, connected and finished

When all 80 pages are covered in a scrambled alphabet,
When the art becomes these scribbly shapes,
When the notebook is full and the Bills are finished:
<ding>
<schwipp>