“No upcoming destinations,”
my cellphone tells me, without
being asked, as if I had high
expectations that I am now
being prompted to lower,
to accept without protestation
this prognosis of stagnation,
of futureless stasis or movement
merely in pointless circles,
of restless ghostly wandering.
The power of suggestion
is strong, but still I will resist
for now, admitting that my
path might be hard to map,
that I might sometimes veer
slightly off the grid, gripped
by anxiety and indecision,
but I do have destinations,
even if I haven’t determined
them yet, and the phone
has a power switch that,
at least for now,
I can still control.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
