Amazon Worker
He was afraid. He was tired. He was very angry.
The fish were fished out. He laughed at democracy.
He laughed at capitalism. Citibank took his boat
and his wife and the Chinese his kids. Walmart
took his state and Target his town. He ran twenty
miles a night up the halogen aisles of the warehouse.
He laughed as his disembodied voice tried to sing.
He wore a metal wristband. It controlled his hand.
The algorithms kept his reach tethered to his grasp.
A gothic tattoo on his veined arm: Machine Meat.
The algorithm madly stacked kites next to condoms.
Workers wept. He called the algorithm the Overlord.
He was angrily chased by facial recognition software.
He laughed at his paycheck. He laughed at their tears.
He laughed at Trump and shootings and Fox News.
The warehouse was 100 degrees. He laughed at heat.
He was on SNAP. He pissed in two Coke bottles.
He laughed at the billionaire exploring other planets.
He was reviewed with Immediate Anytime Feedback.
He shit in a plastic bag. The billionaire shit in peace.
He didn’t drug. He had long defaulted college loans.
He laughed at his unheralded existential meanderings—
and laughed when we gave him drugs to block them.
