The ones doing this were doing all right:
They’d kept up the equipment

with sour baths, unwrenched gaskets;

replaced the planning devices

with the season’s new organizers;

and undertaken a dozen other

required taks. (From the finer

of the lot they chose a handful.)
Their specimen notes — indices of measurements

made possible by aluminium bracelets,

lengths of wire, mercury-fed switches

tipped on — had the look of old metal,

etched clean. The pencilled marks

crept upwards in similar fashion:

doubled dashes for each twitch,

split zeroes for delayed reactions.
(And the ones not doing this still screaming.)