NOPE
By Alina Zollfrank
I’m an app balker. Proof?
You can do this on your cell phone,
eager salespeople soothe
and I, I refuse –
Just check in on your screen,
the medical clinic suggests
and I, I walk right in and demand
the eye contact that’s owed –
It’s easy to transfer funds this way,
pesters my credit union,
and I, I stash wadded cash
to the tune of no one –
But that’s how we do attendance,
school staff bristle
and I ink-scribble my autograph –
My rebel smile so wide
I can taste the earwax.
The willful ocean wave has one job to do
and so do I. An orca in a clownfish-
schooled sea. An app balker in this,
this land of feigned connect – I forge
communion. Drummed lone morse code
washes away the unnecessary –
My smacking flukes d/i/s/r/u/p/t
Alina Zollfrank dreams trilingually in the Pacific Northwest. She believes artists and writers are humanity’s true pulse, social media might just kill our essence, and produce should be shared with neighbors. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize and recently appeared in Orchards Poetry Journal, Heimat Review, SAND, Eastern Iowa Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Comstock Review, The Braided Way, and others. Alina is a grateful recipient of the 2024 Washington Artist Trust Grant and committed disability advocate.
Photo credit: Amit Gupta via a Creative Commons license.
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