Precision - Edit2

[dukealien]

Edit 1

Precision


Piss in a bottle
shit in a jar
bleed in a vial
have your gut scanned ~
all to find out
medically
just how you are.

Answer the phone
voice-printing “yes”
leave fingerprints,
mucus, saliva,
semen or hair ~
then all will know
forensically
just who you are.

Call the heat warm
stare at the stars
envy the birds,
a baby, the dead;
feel the unseen
from stories you’ve read ~
then you may know
empirically
just what you are.

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Thanks to all the excellent critics of this rather slight poem.  Have tried to address their valuable critiques in this edit.

The "envy" lines are intended as a three-pronged choice:  envy the birds = wish your life were different; envy a baby = wish you had it to do over; envy the dead = wish it *were* over.

"[E]mpirically" replacing "humanistically" - the latter is clumsy, couldn't think of a better expression for "man is the measure of all things."  The edit is twistier:  experiencing all or any of these shows that you're essentially, from your own observations, a creature of thought and ideas - not/as well as the medical and social/forensic realities.  Hope it's now profound enough   ; it does seem to read easier.