iPhone

Machine of the modern world, maker
of my profound and important human
banality, I am
your stringless puppet. How talented, how
kind. I pull and
pull away, though
nothing keeps me.
In my darkness, I want your praise
and darkness. When I am silent
something always buzzes—or am I
imagining it?
I want the glowed night
of your twenty-four hour ambient
music, your endless
playlists. Now that I have listened
and learned to hear it
even in my dreams
I think I can recognize eternity.
This is what the sirens sang
to Odysseus as his deaf men
pulled him back with ropes
and he yelled, Let me go! Let me go!
And what does it matter if he
could not go to them, could not
touch them. We all
say the same thing: beautiful
and evil. We fasten each other
to invisible
boats, instead
of hurting one another.