Cherryborg

    


PATIENCE

The patience of a bar of soap
melting in your hands,
that’s as good
as it gets.

The patience of nearly-extinct parrots,
their beaks wired shut,
shoved into shoeboxes
and smuggled north.

Be quiet, be still, survive.

The sense you get
watching the television news
that you’re being kidnapped
each night.

There’s nothing to be done with that.

The sense the merry-go-round
is speeding up, the population’s
exponential increase,
the gunfire and satellites,
drones carrying anthrax soon,

drones singing in your ear

buy this, flee this,
merry christmas,

the president is hiding,
now you hide,

quick, soon anyone
will be able to kill anyone else
anywhere,
with a button press,

even a third grader
will be able to take you out,

anyone with a phone,

the rise
of the Dark Empire

of the forgotten grandmothers

begins.