Softer Than the Finest Silks (from Degrees Kelvin, Beer, and the Price of Oil Paint)

The human body makes the perfect pillow:

woven from the most intricate fabrics of carbon;

stained with the blood of Chinese children

being paid the closest thing to nothing you’ll ever see.

Small hands dunk cocoons into a boiling pot

bubbling over from the heat

to make a cloth consisting of

seventy percent water,

twenty-three percent calcium,

five percent sulphur,

and two percent spandex,

crafted so that you’ll have

ten times more in

dry cleaning fees than

these Chinese children earn in a day.

It’s shipped to 4^th and Fitzwater,

and sold at fifteen dollars a yard.

Made from hydrogen and oxygen,

free from imperfections,

your hands caress the delicate fabric

that will make the perfect curtains

to match your sofa.