Joshua Keiter

Trying to avoid slipping
into easy symbolism 
after having spent most of
the day attempting to reset
a device that decided to stop 
working after months of 
intermittent connectivity 
and limited usefulness 
I’ve lost count of how 
many times I pressed 
a nonexistent button only 
for it to announce it is being 
configured and additional 
settings available shortly 
which is another way of not 
saying shortly never comes

Driving around doing errands 
listening to an interview 
about a story about how 
this country cannot accomplish
the bare minimum to look after 
all the lives the so-called pro-life 
people could not care less about 
we do our shopping for essentials 
holidays are already at a discount 
and go to three stores before
finding a water closet we can use 
free of charge that is not out of order

Welcome this is 
your new home 
not what you were 
expecting is it

land of bureaucracy 
sitting on the floor
expecting improvement 
while staying dirt poor 

and since you are here 
let us explain 
we’ve lost count of our rights 
how few remain

we the people 
try to limit people 
from describing themselves
as people 

and as for the others 
the less said the better 
we follow malpractice 
to the letter

pay no attention 
to the insurrection 
that is bending 
in your direction 

we’d rather say hi 
and give some gift cards 
get used to being American 
we find it’s pretty hard

Unprecedented the way 
we’ve been here before 

except the wind has picked up
carrying the past across 

one state to another
extremes become the new normal

if we wait any longer we won’t
have to predict the worst outcome 

the way we wave goodbye 
as soon as we reluctantly arrive

Sometimes the file where 
I write these 
runs out of memory

and opens at 
the very first one 
I wrote when the pandemic 

was a few weeks old 
and already turning 
into eternity

so I wait for the whole 
document to load 
and scroll six hundred 

some pages to find 
the white space 
to write another

I remember waiting 
to press record
as soon as they appeared 
on the TV show 

wishing I could go 
to the concert 
listening to the cassette 
as a replacement 

now three of four gone 
in less than ten years 
only one remains 
a believer of daydreams 

the morning she died
and I did not know
I wanted to watch the show
all day long with her

now they are with her
to sing along with
and I don’t know if I’ve 
ever loved any other 

half as much as I do
now this light’s gone under

Device dissonance 

tornado destruction
displays on my phone

while my watch 
announces a new email 

The Best Places to 
Live Right Now

Unseasonable weather 
bearing down across 
the country and the couch 

two hundred miles wide 
unheard of in any 
ordinary terms 

tomorrow might return 
to normal temperatures
in the meantime here is 

weight evenly distributed 
throughout the atmosphere 
no need to name 

that sense of foreboding 
as anything other than these
clouds too dark to see by

wind creating shapes cutting 
through the curtains 
joggers in shorts trudge along

some circuits remain unclosed
how does catastrophe 
make itself known without 

evidence rippling through the air
even if we don’t know when 
it becomes unbreathable