I remember my grandmother
She could not drive a car*
I never once saw her dial a phone
Being at home without a dial
Back when the Operator
Breezed out: Number Please!
In a tone that assured she
Was smiling just for you
But Grandma “Gram” surely dialed
Dialed a time or two to ‘sit‘ for brats
Sat for twenty-five pennies per hour
Later for fifty—maybe catch a silver dollar
But mainly my mother gave her the messages
A transfer of data that
Kept her in Babysitting Biz‘
Those precious copper and nickle coins
*There‘s a photo of the three of them
parents and daughter
must have been a showroom
or photo studio
maybe Coney Island
as they never owned a car
my dapper grandfather in
smart-alec attire—I imagine
he wore spats—pretending
the top-down was his
my mother and grandmother forlorn
huddled in their Sunday best
likely embarrassed at the flagrant
charade & hubris;some might admire his
swaggering pride
certainly I
And what about me?
Turgid with technology
I can use a computer and
Brandish these badly clad skills, yet . . .
Squeezed between my expletives . . .
I break screens with my ill-placed will
Punch them like a coke machine
Keep insisting
Hoping for the change
Poking on the cell screen
As though it be in deep sleep
A child I might awaken
Whose response determines its life
I fantasize its death as I toss it from
My seventh floor window
Pleased but for a moment
That never works well
But does deter the hand
And
Birdlike
I wait for any morsel to my eyes
That might reach my brain
In the end I mostly figure it out
But shiver at the price