PLEASE TRY AGAIN
The state tax audit.
The furlough, the layoff, the overdue
Payments. The collector
Robo calls. The passwords
I shouldn’t know.
The pics. The cookies. The raided
401K, the 529s
Our children might never get
To use. The holds
Placed on my unemployment
Benefits because I haven’t been able
To get through the call volume
Has exceeded our capacity will you
Please try again? No more
Dining out. No more F2F
Learning. No more tenure-track
Anything at a third-tier school
Having turned its back
On everything
Not remotely reeking of STEM.
Two thirds of the jobs a decade
From now have yet to be
Invented! I’m way past
Out to pasture and I have to
Wait another twelve years
For Medicare
To kick in, Obamacare
No longer an affordable
Act. What shall we eat? Where
Shall we sleep? I need
A good cry. I need my
Klonopin. I need much more
Than ten free sessions
Of Employee-Subsistence
Blah blah
Or a twelve-step lottery
Handout, can you
Feel me?
THIN ICE CRACKING ON THE LAKE
Burnt match
left skating
in a toilet bowl—
storm windows
painted shut
where a man I
love has gone
ghosting me
again—
Timothy Liu's latest books of poems are Down Low and Lowdown and Luminous Debris. New work is forthcoming in American Poetry Review and Ploughshares. A reader of occult esoterica, he lives in Woodstock, NY. www.timothyliu.net