Hackers
While I sleep the sinister
steal my wings from me, though
I’ve shut on all accounts the sacrosanct.
I checked and this ring tone’s wrong;
it disobeys the poetry of phones,
which depend on digits to decide whether
just to buzz or to explode in squalor.
Every day, jailbait punctuates the yellow
pages, every hit a Chinese handcuff.
Every night, a gloved hand reaches into
my dream as if to crack the combination
lock. I don’t wind up as such. I don’t kiss
and click and tell and there’s never been
a morning when I’ve woken up this much.
S a r a h J . S l o a t
copyright 2014 by Sarah J. Sloat
guest editor: Sara Biggs Chaney
Afterword