The Platform Says

hellscape｜summer 2018

I agree with the platform.
It's more a mirror with a gun, than not.

It's more an appendage
than we let on. So I agree.

The other violence
is too straightforward.

Not a fixed thing, or a visible one,
the platform is a motion.

A gesture to and away,
regular as the rising tide;

a cadence,
it's an occasion that calls for

access to an America
that will outlive us.

For the platform, I've lost my family.
It began at the uncles

and ended with these very hands.
This should be a very funny story.

But we watched as we watch most things,
like the way my nephew wants to be

a garbage man, a war hero,
a priest, by turns –

the platform happens not to you
but something adjacent you:

we gauge its weight by how much
and how gently we are displaced.

< back