Dead to Rights at the Bureau of Life
Lucas Jorgensen | Poetry
God parted the gray clouds of heaven to decree “None shall pass before me before thy time…Take
a number and kindly wait at the back of the line.” It was getting hotter, like somewhere south of
south a boil started to boil, the skin of the earth bulged, sometimes belched. Suicide violated policy,
but the official passing procedure was painful, Byzantine, could last more than a century. We tried to
sneak the job, embezzling the future in increments. Powdered heaven up the nose. Personal vehicles
piloted by dinosaur ghosts. We baked too much bread and bred too many cows, tossed the expired,
plasticoated loaves into the pastures, stuffed ourselves until our spines tinseled like Christmas trees.
Even those with kinder Gods —or different Gods—or no gods at all were infested. The fish and the
fisherman. The art and the artist. All was made in cheap, mass-produced imitation. Each fold of our
brain’s endless folds spiked with silly putty. The gray clouds of heaven parted. We waited to be
welcomed through an open stile. All we heard was a dial tone.
Lucas Jorgensen (he/him) is a poet and educator originally from Cleveland, Ohio. In 2023, he was a winner of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest. He received his MFA from New York University and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of North Texas where he teaches and studies poetry. His work has previously appeared in Poetry, Literary Hub, The Massachusetts Review, and The Southeast Review, among others.