Utopia Now
by Marie Fujimoto

the city is overwhelmingly
tall, bright, gleaming
in eye-stabbing glory
all glass and contours
a museum built atop
coffins stacked end to
end, constantly recycled
from a slave’s graveyard.

the sun paints every skyscraper
using the same dull palette, a wide
brush, and strong vertical strokes
renewing each day, the thick bars
of our chosen prison.

when the sun is finished with the day,
and has packed and gone,
the city blooms like an electric
flower, whose crystalline
edges are highlighted in neon
and stainless steel
high above the pools of blood,
the chunks of flesh,
pulverized bone
but not far enough
to get away from
smoke in the wind.

hidden in every pocket
carried in every hand
pressed to every ear
invisibly listening, recording
unblinking lenses capture
frames of lives and store them
for later use by the Force of Law
or their faceless cowardly
Catchers, keeping us in an endless
line of cubbyholes and cubicles—
one long ice tray from sink to freezer.