Deliverance

remembering trumps
planned forgetting
spontaneity a full house,
repression a lowly pair

erasing the past is
deleting old email, your

in-box is empty, but…

our eternally modern
struggle remains
reply or delete?
reply or delete?
reply or delete
reply. delete.

indecisive
hunt-and-peck
via archetypical
cartoonish devil
on one shoulder
angel on the other

needing a reboot;

archeologist feverishly
digging away on one scapula
Santayana philosophically
musing on the other side

your contemplative
reveries frequently disrupted
answering the doorbell t0

Jacob Marley’s ghost
clad (sans chains) in
Dickensian FedEx uniform

resignedly you scrawl
your nonchalant signature
on her thick clipboard
close the door before
tossing the unopened envelope
onto the stack with the others

– Mark Lucker