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Forest Hills, Adagio
It’s a baseline possibility, to net positive. The ballad beneath
folded fingers of canopy trees. What is this governance?
A society places concerts where they used to do tennis.
Relocation is avidly forehanding a technical utopia.
One advantage of this adaptation, during slower bouts,
is the open invitation to contribute. To lift a little light.
By necessity, the subject everyone faces is the followed leader,
for a season. It’s earned, tethering the sky-shuttled air
through objective hair and by result: utilitarian glitter.
The conductor hangs on by beads of now cellular shine,
each attempting their own comment amidst held court
after vaulting faulted dolphin cries between sets.
The solo blinks, within the constellation, signal back
at emotional directives saying, “Roger, we’re alright.”
A faint thumbs up, receiving copy. Many surprised captains
won’t recognize evidence of genuine care - like what’s
in handmade textiles touching skin or used for bedding.
But a musician signing expeditious codes really understands.
So much so that attendees insist a humanistic purpose
on cold devices. Such as a lighter, or a cascade of them,
as it once was. Kept for joints and cigarettes, reducing the first
invention - which originally brought us from our caves -
to a single smoker pulling away for a drag or selfish hit.
(Violent verbiage, one hand over the mouth.)
And this new iteration, raising our black bars, intending
peaking stars. We are out here. With you. Suns to each other.
Despite alluded togetherness, which the phone so advertised,
this affected testimonial decides its connectivity,
backhanding the passive and neglectful one.
We are not in the vacuum, a streaming service away.
[8/14/22]
the poem's title refers to a neighborhood in central Queens.
it was once the home of the US Open.
now a concert venue is there on former tennis courts.
internet bellyache 