Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Garage-Sale Rolodex® for Seventy-Five Cents

        I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
        debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.

                -Patrick McGoohan as Number Six in The Prisoner

The Rolodex was once a symbol of power
Of knowledge marshalled into sequences
Orderly sequences alphabetized by names
By names and cross indices of subjects and dates

Of enemies or allies or contacts, rarely friends
Condensed in ink on smoothly finished cards
Restrained in place by colored plastic tabs
Awaiting the stroke of an office tyrant’s hand

The Rolodex was subsumed within The ‘Phone
Thus still your life cannot be called your own