Duty calls, teacher hat,
same as the preacher hat,
same as the mathematical wager,

still on, Pascal. Safe bet, but… once

a few million kids at once learned
that tic tack toe and thermo-nu-clear war,
were in the set of bets that blinks can lose.

In a New York movie, some geek kid,
reacted by becoming Barry Rudd,
the purchased man child in the legendary

Child Buyer Project, novelized after Hiroshima,
by a master of the craft, story building
from ash and salt and sand,

into glass houses none throw stones from,
in the mind game of fragile circumstances,

thin ice, no ice, open sea, pity the bears,
celebrate the sea lions and otters and seals.