Modus operandi

by Sandra Ridley

1

Is all well in your dysfunctional dollhouse, with your paint–by–number
     Van Goghs
and thimble–sized gas masks?

Venus and Adonis of the Great Bedroom Gloom, can you flatter and
     be flattered?

Do you sleep with dreams of relentless slash fiction? Giddy with
     deadpan graphic?

Beasts do what they do. Albeit wicked.
Albeit fragile.

Benumbed, none of us stand a chance.

2

Are you in a stranglehold of junk–store jewelry, recalcitrance, and lust?

We see you flourish with your farewell address, delivered from a
     re–commissioned bunker.
Or is it a box–store out of business?

Do you desire an A–bomb revival or to give us a quick shove?

You, scion of disenchantment, dismiss the unfettered. You, scold.
No lick of a chance. No matter. We’ve read credible reports you
     boil your rivals alive.

3

Inspector of the Space Farce, do you rise from the Mediocre
     Echelon for a remedial plan on fire
safety, unstrapped but buttoned up in your summer linen best?

I’m fresh faced with new final digits to my SIN.
Is this apropos?

We wouldn’t vote for artificial intelligence, but we’re happy
we gave our smartphones our thumbprints.

I wouldn’t say I don’t care — I just don’t care enough.

4

If this is the necessary masterwork of a darkroom squint–eye,
     I don’t know what to make of it.
Home away from home, love away from love, with out–post
     delusions.

You inject some rhetoric of belligerence with the odd decorum of
     a mock–romantic.
Dig deep.

How will we keep our integrity when those around us feel lack?
Sic the minions, the late–night memos, the same–night leaks.
     Snipe indignity or indictment.

Oh! It’s a lethal slideshow of facts.

You’re briefed by talking points, but are you listening in on the
     drop–line?
Confer with the chain of command, sanction the lies, and tell me
     what I want to hear.

Drone on.
I’m calmed by the hum of a liquid cooled hard drive.

This is as real as it gets.