Lone Incumbent

She had three monitors, like all crustaceans,

Under clouds and the moon during the day.

The windows didn’t open due to ancient paint,

But her hand twisted the latch at every angle.

The effort was exhaustive: hagfish on bones.

Everyone dropped everything to find the spider,

And their peripheral vision splayed out

As if God himself wanted tabs on all goings-on.

Screen to screen to screen with seamless ideas

That might do some good in the world,

She ignored an email about mountain gorillas.

It made its way way down in the queue

Where nobody ever comes out, nobody in.

The bush plane had its regular fumes,

As if it held no grudges or new feuds,

A hominid chorus looked up in unison,

Figuring the future and an expectation.