Of Unity

By Mark Berelekhis

I offer thanks to Jobs and Gates

for helping me erect

a thousand shiny screens

between me and the world,

a neighbor’s icy gaze,

another human heart.

Encased in an impregnable cocoon–

coasting on hashtags,

bouncing off Facebook walls–

I toil from dawn till dusk

to sow and harvest the illusion

of connection.

What do I know of unity?

A transient alliance

against a rival sports team,

against an ideology,

against the one percent.

Discordance makes a flimsy foundation–

values shift, teams relocate, fortunes are lost

or gained.

The lens inside my skull is on the fritz,

capturing stills of enmity and strife,

where there is only love.

But this, alas, is all I know of life.