DE FRAGILITATE EXPERTORUM

art by Loralee Clark

by Foster Gareau

DE FRAGILITATE EXPERTORUM: A MAD LIB TOWARD THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN

FIELD FORM / DO NOT ARCHIVE INCORRECTLY

STEP 1 — SELECT DESCRIPTORS (CHOOSE EXACTLY TWO):

porcelain / brittle / fragile / performative / ceramic / hollow / porous / breakable / calcified / tender / cracked / thin / heterosexual / caucasian

(write both in the first blank)

STEP 2 — SELECT SPECIES (CHOOSE EXACTLY ONE):

homo didacticus / scholaris grandiloquus / expertus maximus / eruditio absurdus / professorius pompatus / doctorus loquacius / homo masculus

(write in the second blank)

STEP 3 — COMPLETE THE SPECIMEN:

(                                                          )

(                                                          )

                                                     ( faintly repeat descriptors )
                                                ( faintly repeat species )

are among the most fragile I have known—

      glass organs disguised as stone,
      hollow bells tolling authority,

      mistaking performance for ontology.

They live on scaffolds of expertise: every new fact a brick pitched

                   through cathedral windows,

                           an insult to self-anointed omniscience.

                                                                  ( faintly repeat species )

Ignorance, to them, is pathology—never the shared condition,

                                                                               ( descriptor / descriptor)

       but a private humiliation,

“not knowing” to them, is a defect of the mind.

Fault, too, is rust:

                             stray critiques must be buffed to apology,

                                                                           ( descriptor )

as if syntax itself were an armed coup,
 syllable as spark,

                                                                          ( descriptor / species )

the slight suggestion of error an insurrection.

                   And when they speak the air thickens:

                                                                            ( descriptor )

                   language buckles into doorless, long corridors,

                   a rhetoric without architect, a non-draftsman at the bench,

      tool-less,

                                                        ( species )

drawing dead blueprints.

Listeners wander, searching for an exit,

                                                         ( descriptor / descriptor )

humming along to a discourse embalmed but still pulsing.

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*N.B. Specimen preserved in jargon

                 handle with gloves,

                                                                            ( species )

exposure may result in fluency—misidentification is common.

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