▾ 
like leftover sloppy joe dripping
out the sides of his/her mouth
as the gormandizer gets ready
for the rest of the meal—s/he
stands at the podium, a politician,
a priest—one in the same, telling
the sheep that they are not to
blame—because s/he tells them
what they want to hear (that things
will be better once they are in
charge, that if things don’t get
better there is a land somewhere
off in the distance waiting for them
after death that will help make
sense of it all), that s/he
can relate to the way that they
hurt, s/he looks, s/he appears to
have lived a life of worry like them,
s/he appears to have creases in the
face produced by lack of financial
security just as they, s/he even
tears up on cue as the best in
hollywood, when pressed—with
handshakes, baby-kissing, “blessings”
& “prayers,” each signal the
lowest possible denominator of
evolution, what hangs on for
dear life as those final attributes
that will be forgotten with the
dust & left in the gutter, when the
robots finally come.
