Poetry

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By

Alejandro Escudé

Analytica

the you in you is setting up a social media account

and it will soon be selected as a political target

the you in you reads the songs of William Blake

the you in you is in on the take

would you be willing to pressure them on lies?

only the you in you could do it

he says, they’re taking advantage of the you in you

and you say, I’ll talk to them about it

a post makes it, not the you or the you in you,

but the post. It will solicit a campaign contribution

from another you you only knew in the past,

the one that approached her in the sunhat

that was you wasn’t it in the George Seurat

following her down the field where it was cooler

she couldn’t of known so fast, you were not you

then either, you were a software engineer

traveling from West to East and back again

working on political targeting, and now look

they’ve kicked you off of their platforms and you

can’t even bare to think of her feline face,

the freckles that held the code to your other future

you only saw that sun hat, didn’t you?

or was that the other you she fell for, then fell through

time for, as the suited professor paced

the college hall, picking his goatee, asking something

about Rebecca, and she passed me a pen

I dreaded to ask her for, but did, that pen that is still

making its way through the lit caverns of the net

where one can hear a pin drop despite the spoilage of noise,

and where her hat sits, her vermillion hat, now

I recall, her vermillion sunhat—sits in a pixellated window

you or the you that is online can click

to order, just as you believe a whistleblower, who wants

to chat with Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram

about the possibility of ending his exile from power,

a modern Dante with purple hair, a laureled sage,

a man who could bring all of our loves back to us,

and who might be able to bridge our younger us

with us, over vast distances, the Caucasus Mountains

that separate our passions from our loves,

our windows from libertarians who peddle information.

Alejandro Escudé

Alejandro Escudé’s first book of poems, My Earthbound Eye, was published in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.