The daily newspaper has shrunk
to headlines with captions,
headlines cut to a few words,
words reduced to symbols
on a small handheld screen
Two cups of coffee once
bought me the inside scoop
between fact and propaganda,
details and loose talk
Well written magazines and journals
led me to explore the unknown
Life gossiped in snippets
makes me suspicious of what
lurks beneath the day’s fashionable
abbreviations and emojis
Fast, faster, fastest
reminds me of train schedules
and speeding through ghost towns;
the beginning and end sitting in rusted piles
by the highway and in junkyards,
and where thumbers get lost on the LOL