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| art by Joseph Shaeffer © |
arriving
at Bradbury complex, river junction depot in the north ward of the former
America
it
is one
of
the few places
still
holding
fresh
water
near
infinity
I
wait to disembark
the
canal ways
are
scalpel wide
molecular
begins
they
are lowering
transportation
costs
to
guillotine swift
they
slow pole
clean severance pay
attaching 3 x 5 index cards
as placarded disgraces
the latest head displaced
with rolling eyes
attaching a criminality
to this 8 lb. head
on display
documents
please
the
border agent says
and
I reach
for
the gun pocket
inside
my coat
to
pull out
my
passport
it
is as if I were on
some
tele-scripted
evangelical
cathode
ray
nipple stage
innuendo
and subtlety
shaved
thin enough
to
see through
passports
are
bio
metric scatter rays
palm out densities
married to flesh
so
this indentification process
just picks up
the vagaries
of sight variations
but
we humans
still
need badges
designations and
scarlet letters
on
the ready
when we look
each
other
in
the eye
to
say something
does
not smell right
this
is why
the
police divisions
created
to analyze
vector
pathogens
are
stocked heaviest
at
the borders and
all
the gated privileges
inside
them
they
test the air and
every
of one us
a
germ carrying bag of pus
this is what
citizenry became
when
we stripped ourselves
to
core out our humanity
we
had once tied ourselves
to
identity based on a cultural,
geographic
and environmental
causative
invisibility
but
we are now
just
glass specimens
jars,
really
meant
for
emergencies
to break open
glass
tidal domes
became
the normal
ceiling
structure
of
the clouds
at
the turn
of
the 21st century
building anger,
over having
lesser
amounts
of
the things
we
have grown
to
know as intrinsic
was
eating us
from
the inside out
things
went missing
for
days and weeks and
electricity
waned and
waxed
like crumble snakes
holding
heat in
a July
short night swelter
we shelter
tracked
and mined static
radio
signals for rain
we
sometimes, told stories
of
when we used to
open
the domes
when
we thought
the
air might be clean
for
a few hours
when
we could invoke
any
memory born without vigilance against
influenza
or some other virus unleashed
when
the resources ran out
and
we fought to attain them
more
than our paper credit soul
or
the leaden debt of our bodies
left
behind in neatly stacked racks
of
canned goods
we
used to see stars
now
we see the great
helium
tethered networks
of
balloons tying
dance-weaves
of wind
gathering data inside
a
constancy of clouds
these
hover brains
troposphere
hunt
for
information and
organisms
that may help
what
hinders us riding out
all
the wars
of information, dragging
front
line suffocation
we wear each diversion
to
entertain
screen-shell reverses
in a non-stop battle
of
infinite candy versus
fasting
before asking
please,
may we have more
time
to remember
a
way back
to
when plastic
did not
matter
and
was not part
of
everything we ate
when
they burned books
and
sages
to
fuel hunger
and we foraged
where we could look
for
lies to keep
us
warm and fed
EJR
©
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