WAVE OF THE FUTURE

Amber Waves
J.B. Rowell

I come from the people
who are wound a little tighter
strung a little higher
super-sensitive to the subtleties
of facial expressions
nuisances of visible thought
I can read people
call it intuition or ESP
but I believe
I just pay closer attention than most
like my grandmother
“Bobbie the Witch”
we flick on the brights and slow
seconds before a deer darts
we see the UFO hovering just over our house
we’re pointing
while everyone else is going about
resigned
to the rhythm
of the day.

You need one of me in a pack.
I hear the rustle in the brush,
I feel the underpinnings of mutiny
on the rise in my hackles,
I know the alphas will lock horns soon
and we will be the ones who pay the price.

All of this vigilance has taken its toll.

Bobbie was subjected to the best practices
of mental health in her time,
shock therapy and Absolution,
but I, being of an enlightened time,
have simply succumbed to the amber bottle.
It’s easy you see.
All you have to do is,
say you have a “full plate”
or tell your gyno you cry for no reason,
to receive a first-class ticket
to Numbville:
What hovering?
What rustling?