So many folks today carrying cell phones
To augment the ones at home
Me, a single phone MORE than enough
The jarring ring always
Interrupting thoughts, fantasies and schemes.
Now, the added burden
Of all your cell phones -
"I'm on the bus. I'll be home in five minutes. Love you too."
Around they go
Clutching the noisy little machines
Scientists are saying
Will eventually eat a
Big cancerous hole
In their cluttered little heads:
All those mundane voices
At their fingertips
Squarely in the center of
Emptier and Emptier worlds
"I'm on the bus.
Love you, if you love me."
_
"I'm On the Bus" is excerpted from Wilken's Sweat Off the Diamond (2009).
