The bosses have dispensed what they call “enigmas” –
envelopes in which some truths lie folded
that will free us from our endless disagreements
and give us eternal life. Or so they’ve told us.
If you can manage to scratch them open
you find papers scrawled with obscurities, tokens…
figures or figurations, to be more precise –
stenciled trinkets that in reality
access neither freedom nor immortality.
Some of them are black and white, while others are pied.
The following are among those I’ve tried:
the heliotrope, the G-clef, the spotted disk.
You’re told to crumple them up in your knotted fist.
Most recently I received a pretzel:
riddle arrested in dough, obscurest Rätsel.
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