Design Theory

This poem won Editor's Dad's Choice in 2-Day Poem Contest 2015

Stencil your hand on the cave wall; 

then come, let’s play cards. Mind the fire.

 

We measure time with isotopes. Since 1950, anyway.

Before that, we faked it, and now, we just lie.

 

Sixty stories of mirrored windows shatter

into sidewalks. Remember inertia? Gale force winds?

 

In space, a flame is round and blue. Gravity’s lapsed

in a parallel universe, if every possibility is true.

 

Appliances arrive in stainless, white, or bisque. 

Preheat the oven; pigs become pork, ham, or bacon. 

 

Our morning millet is soaking on the stove,

and rain stains the carpet: holes in the roof.

 

Read the fine print: everything’s a commercial.

Who cares, it’s satellite. It’s pyrite, fool.