Nobody’s Bureau
Lucas Jorgensen | Poetry
after Emily Dickinson
The Blame Machine is on the fritz again. Thankfully, nobody’s to blame. Sure took a long time to
figure out, though—nobody’s dying from an abundance of praise. The funeral’s planned for next
Friday. Nobody knows how to feel. Nobody looks death in its hard, white face and jabs it in the eye.
Nobody dies all the time. It’s like a miracle. Nobody’s not sure the crack in the door leaks heaven’s
light. Take every nobody, huddled all together, and, accounting for rounding, you’ve gathered the
whole Ledger of Life. Nobody’s in it. Nobody’s even taking account.
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.