Splenda tricks his tongue
While sipping coffee to energize
A brain trained by Netflix
To obsess over the serial motivation
Of the bearded man in a business suit
With a white sunscreen painted face
Shopping at Target for a plastic orchid
To suit his potential partner
After the Botox injections
Plump her recessions to
Attract so many likes that
Pile up like clunking poker chips
And expand her followers like
Rising soap suds that are intended to
Cleanse the stickiness from a Dixie plate
Face if you leave them in long enough
Then the phone will ring
With an offer of independent
Wealth if you press 2
And for your protection
There will be no
Live interactions.
Michel Krug’s collection, Jazz at the International Festival of Despair, is scheduled for publication by Broadstone Books, in the spring, 2024. He is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and he litigates. He’s also a Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News literary magazine.
