Reading in the Twenty-Second Century by Keith Mark Gaboury

Splash language into my eyes 
like bathtub water. I feel, 
I love digitized words 
surging through 
my Pacific wave vision. 

Who has the time to spend a sunloop 
piecemealing a Victorian novel 
when I can receive Bronte’s impetus 
within a nanosecond of absorption. 

The judgement of Jane Eyre 
corrals inside neurological sparks 
before draining into a reject bin
at the back of Beth’s Barber Shop. 

Her red and white pole spins, 
an orbit of commerce 
as a customer walks in 
with a mohawk that needs managing. 

A professor on the future, 
he envisions reading 
will go the way of the woolly mammoth 
stomping through the past. 

*Previously published in Abstract: Contemporary Expressions in August 2018.

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Keith Mark Gaboury earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. His poems have appeared or is forthcoming in such publications as Poetry Quarterly, New Millennium Writings, and Eclectica. Keith lives in Oakland, California. Learn more at www.keithmgaboury.com.