Print This PostWhen you fell asleep with your fingerprint on the sensor
I kept your hand warm. I kept my hand above the hand
on your controller, and we scrolled through the menus
together, punched your dream onto the screen.
It was a first person shooter. You navigated through
levels reserved for early adopters. Every portal
glowing in the dark. Of course I’d never dream
you’d cruise through rooms of memory. How you used to
sleeptalk about the startup, in the morning beg me
tell exactly what you’d said. A room filled with diamonds
and enemies, the exit a sewer stacked with rubies
and man-size rats. Aboveground, the circuits of the sky
surge on. A figure on a bridge rimmed with gold coins,
no railing, goes down. You muscle your way into a villa
stocked with backstabbers and portraits of riches.
I never recognize myself in any of the victims.
__________________________________________________________
Elsbeth Pancrazi works for the Poetry Society of America, serves on the editorial board of PEN Journal, and sometimes binds books for Small Anchor Press. Her poems and book reviews have appeared on BOMBlog, Bookslut, Boog City Reader, Forklift, Ohio, H_ngm_n, and elsewhere in print and on the web.
