Thursday, February 4, 2016

Tony Mancus

the future emojis are the same as the new emojis are the same as your life

when the skate park closed
no one was there to notice
the sound of the garbage
truck was something
everyone could sense

incessant backing up
through yards and stoops
sentimentalizing everything
in its rubbery way

cover the wits and the windows
with your dreams it said
like they’re a certain thread count
sheet and not simple disposables

the doctor always told me this
to feel like the rabbit on fire
running through the forest
spreading light with its fur

but there’s a fine line between
grinding and sex           one that usually
involves knowledge and another body
or at least some kind of physical

conditioning I still don’t see
the emotional response I want
among all of the stickers of this
scantron world

(no one continues
to notice anyone
noticing anything)

we’re busy with these bubbles
filling in our future and the choices
suggest ideal occupations for each of us
if you fill in the right pattern

you can be anything (including
but not limited to:
garbage, the person
backing a truck up, the memory
of a skate park, a digital
representation of e-
motion, the laundry
stiff and crying as it freezes
on a rope) between here
and tomorrow.

* * *
Tony Mancus is the author of a handful of chapbooks, most recently City Country (Seattle Review). With Meg Ronan, he co-curates the In Your Ear reading series in Washington D.C. He works as an instructional designer and lives with his wife Shannon and three yappy cats.

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