A POET, sitting at their desk, opens a Word Document.
Inside the Word Document there is Social Media.
The POET stares at the Social Media, which stares into the POET.
The POET waves their arms like a cloud hunting sparrows.
Can you believe people believe in God
all the time? The POET asks. The Social Media
slides off the Word Document and into the POET’s coffee mug,
which the POET drinks like a shot, murmuring
the body fuck fuck. In the Word Document,
like tulips, All the Mothers of the World bloom.
The Fathers appear, shepherding their small moons
towards them. Love is a soap box! the POET shouts,
weeping. Inside the POET, Social Media
wanders from organ to organ, knocking on doors,
offering to sell ballet flats and esoteric flavors of Old Spice.
But no one is home.The POET has finished weeping.
The Fathers herd their tiny moons into the margins,
and All the Mothers of the Word follow.
The POET can’t see them, but the POET hears them.
What a hideous constellation! The Mothers and Fathers say.
The POET is certain they are talking about the POET.
So the POET invents a wolf. A sleek, ink-black wolf,
made of cerulean vernacular. It slinks across the screen.
Screams. The POET smiles. Exhausted,
Social Media curls up on the bed of the POET’s liver.
Todd Dillard’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Best New Poets, Barrelhouse, Superstition Review, The Boiler Journal, Nimrod, and Split Lip Magazine. Additionally, his work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and Pushcart anthologies, and was a finalist for the 2018 Best Small Fictions anthology. He is a recipient of a grant from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and his chapbook “The Drowned Hymns” is available from Jeanne Duval Editions.