burlap chair, balanced on its celestial springs
and memory-foam cushions, ever mindful
of the color-coordinated pillows his wife
insisted they buy the day before she died.
Special lumbar support she argued, as if he
knew what or where such a thing was or meant.
You’ll be happy she claimed. Memento mori,
he thinks? A keepsake that goes on talking.
Passive regressive? he muses after the fact.

A man sits in digital darkness. The Internet’s down.
A freak global leakage. Most likely a Chinese-Russian
conspiracy to drown the Internet of Things.
Though his refrigerator sulks, humming to itself
Beethoven’s Requiem through its exhaust fan blades,
for once it all seems sane: Siri refuses to speak
in any known language. Alexa mopes silently
in a smoke-free corner and BPA zone. Nothing beeps.
Not altogether a bad thing. A blessing in drag.
Reason enough to reconsider his artery of choice.