Master

 

Master

 

You know, I thought I’d put

rows of bus seats between us both,

yet somehow she found me,

stumbling down our narrow aisle

and all the while

her iPhone in her hand

as though it had been nailed there.

 

I’d trousered mine - I don't care

for hateful, vile oblongs of data, chips,

microcircuits, other random bits

of nasty, rammed in spyware –

where it remained, detestable,

while we tunneled through

Al Asiri underpass.

 

She’d turned hers into a looking glass,

meantime, but she’s no Alice,

fingering greasy tresses of hair,

pleased with what she sees there,

like two evil faces,

smothered with hypocrisy.

 

Somewhere deep in her psyche

there are specific powders, a phial

in a drawer marked ‘E’

begging the pharmacy

please to bring them to me:

keep sending, keep sending

but she will not change back,

there's something that the salts lack.

 

She must put it away from her,

hide this appalling evidence,

and I have nothing but sympathy,

but it just won’t extend

to final solutions, purges,

because it’s her urges, the urges

have her on the rack -

and it keeps coming out,

from her pocket

from her handbag

from beside her on the seat,

even when she speaks, maybe eats,

she cannot lift her eyes to greet.

 

And, I’m thinking -

here’s our Victor upping his mountains

from Chamonix to Montavert,

he’s watchful and on the alert

hobbling over the Mer de Glace

to lift some shadow from his dour face

and confront his demon.

 

And if she could put it down 

long enough to see him

it might say for afters, 

penetrate her greasepaint and plaster -

you were my creator

but I am your Master.