First there’s the smartphone
Shining into the corner
Of a bar—one wick of many—
With a message: The world
Is covered in dirt. Then, later on,
You kiss a stranger
In a boxy white car—a kissing
Booth—and you make
One vow after another.
Heaven, you think,
Is one place you’ll be pleased.
First, then, finally—it wakes you
Mid-morning and you
Remember: bills, friends that hate you,
Your brother’s dead, your
Father, your mother …
You realize the isolation
Is biological, instinctual,
And you’re comforted, at this
End, by all its living death.