October 2022 Flash Lit #4 - QR Code Menu

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Every touch—every touch—

has become violence.

We are walking war crimes

or weapons of mass destruction.

not smart bombs—we know not

what we do

as we garnish our menus

with plague and pestilence.

 

•

 

Even in war, people die

of other things—

broken hearts, cancers,

hunger, freak accident, old age,

car crashes.

 

•

 

The chicken strips in the hospital

cafeteria are very good—

hot and crispy.

A child’s meal to feed

my grieving child-self.

 

•

 

My brother is not vaccinated.

We pay for a rapid test

via smartphone

and I lend him a mask

So he can see our father’s face

half-hidden by ventilator tubes.

His body bruises so easily.

Every medication leaves its mark.

 

•

 

Our eyes see a square of squares

and find no meaning

in the markings.

It takes a camera’s eye

and a brain of silicon

to translate box

to box lunch.

There is another text—

palimpsest—

and sometimes we can read it:

We are all,

all of us,

dying.