There’s Documented Evidence of Telegraph Operators in the Distant & Almost Completely Isolated Operation Stations of the American Southwest Falling in Love, Despite the Century Beginning With 18, the Tumbleweeds, the Single Iron Wire, Poles Impersonating Cacti, Dots, Dashes, Omissions, Hesitations, False Starts, & At-First-Unobvious-Yet-Still-Horrific Anti-Indigenous Propaganda

So don’t tell me your love  
is somehow lesser than  
just because you used  
an App, even if her photo  
was a beta version of herself  
& technology is still mostly  
understood as magic until 
it's really understood via 
experience, as when one  
woman wanted to impress  
a traveling fella & thus tried  
to pour her famous homemade  
thick tomato soup down the  
telegraph line. Electrocution  
isn’t never a laughing matter,  
especially for distant writers.  
When are you going to  
shift from survival mode 
to living mode? There are 
only 37.5 billion acres of  
land on the planet & no 
one other than the Dutch  
& the random South Pacific  
volcano are making more,  
& not even enough to keep  
pace with the ice melting 
in your fizzy glass of Coke  
& a smile, so what are you  
going to do with your  
mortgaged .3 acres? Build  
more fences in a desperate  
attempt to avoid the idea  
that you’re just a placeholder?  
Exclusion often comes down  
to which side of the fence 
you’re on, & savagery gets  
defined differently depending  
on if you’re the conquered  
or the conqueror. Barbed  
wire’s invention led directly  
to Americans having heart  
attacks in droves, as once  
you fence in cattle, you can  
contain, hyperbreed, & soon,  
at least compared to evolution,  
Mmmm bacon cheeseburgers.  
I fell in love when I was 
least expecting it, her breath, 
perfume, & pheromones  
the only technology on  
the wind, & when you full  
stop & think about it, owning 
earth is as ridiculous as  
owning air, another, or  
magic itself, so are you  
going to continue to focus  
on possession, or for once 
finally admit, given the  
documented percentages 
& actuarial tables, for once 
finally realize that if we  
really wanted to be sticklers  
about it, we’d call Earth  
Water?  
 

+ Inspired by The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage (1998), Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester (2021), & “Having a Coke with You” by Frank O’Hara (1960).  

Bob King is an Associate Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. His recent poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from JAKE, Paddler Press, Aôthen Magazine, The Purposeful Mayonnaise, Spare Parts Literary Magazine, The Viridian Door, & Ink Sweat & Tears. He lives on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife & daughters.