Tuesday, December 20, 2016

EXAMINATION

A white head glowing on the other side
of a heavy wide
desk
from me (I feel

like there
ought to be
a Newton's Cradle
clacking as it goes on)

talking,
pausing severely
to hear,
then instructing
the same fingers,

which have mapped
and confidently
criticized thousands of pasty
quivering bodies
before mine,

to type away capriciously
on an antique computer
next to the typewriter.

Gradually, I fearfully gather
I'm being hunted
out here
in the gap:

Is that you?
or me? The voice asks
incongruously
at the second sounding
of a ring tone,

before those giant hands envelop,
unclasp
and then quickly
and loudly
snap shut a shiny flip-phone—