David Rivard

The American common is no collective or princedom
but privacies of need & pleasure as they intersect
in public spaces while the insufferable powers that be
breed their plots & afflicted secret intentions
behind our backs, thinking us blind & deaf, witless,
just a bunch of demographic motormouths & screw-ups
to be targeted by commodities traders & advertisers—
a marketing niche for every need, stereotypes
tagged by algorithms—here is a typical team
of baton twirlers in an airport bar clad entirely
in foxy red track suits & tuned-in to the dollhouse
stimulations of pigeon-talking sales reps;
there is a previously undetected aggregation of
retirees, evangelical camp kids, kickass bowlers
and mothy nuns in starched wimples, for whom
the news of the day means aging boy-man
Hugh Grant's fear of double chins—neither of these
or any other category exactly false, but so
acutely overblown once in a while as to lose sight
of us entirely: a mid-town lady in Capri pants,
or a four-square surgeon off-duty & headed
to play poker, or a plumber fly-fishing the river—
a sky of twilight slate now—not a word written on it.