empty windows (p)

~
equal parts the internet and the hundreds of thousands 
of years leading up to it, there's this unspoken preoccupation 
with intimacy, virginity, sex going around 
just a little too long to politely ignore, these days. 

clueless library veterans and 2026's equivalent to 
hipsters crowd behind me in public places, gas- 
station counters, supermarkets, Wal-Mart, bodegas, 
from sea to lonely sea. 

I'd sever the tip of my right pinky 
to be done with it 
if the sacrifice 
had some guarantee. 

but what they're missing 
they already know 
in spite of the empty chatter 
in spite of the luck of company 
in spite of who they are 
or what they want. 

no fucking around here, man: it's 
like picking up an overcoat with 
a toothpick: 

you've got to see what people are selling, 
if anything at all. 




****    

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