I sit around the table
with some people
who want to change the world.
I do not want to change the world.
I came out tonight for the company,
and the truth is, I like the world.
Its coastlines,
its peaks and valleys,
its weekly Aldi specials and
I do not want it to change.
Someone says it’s because
I am privileged. And of course
I do not want to change a world that works
for me.
I agree up until
that last caesura, and
as then I pour them,
all of them, more of my wine,
I get distracted from defending myself.
Outside that cramped winter living room,
the stars are rotating,
the tides are changing,
and a group of sweaty men
—and some sweaty women—
are beginning work again on Lytton Road bridge:
redirecting streams of traffic,
testing their new circuitry,
resurfacing those dark roads.
Stars above, tides below,
and in here—
your new system of government
uses blockchain how, exactly?
By Jonathan O’Brien
