Year of the Amateur

        Recall the frontier when the business 
of memory booms, when broadbands uncoil 
        and clouds swell with sticky portals, amassing 
        to a monsoon of live-streams. 
        Burn your chattel to keep the cloud afloat
so its tears can freeze to snow. 
        The voice flatlines in this season of pulp: 
The artist makes miniature churches out of drain pulp,
The Indonesian rainforest is pulped, 
the last illuminated gold leaves are pulped so we 
        gather and watch an otter nom nom 
sweet urchin to a pulp.  
We laugh softly.

Copyright © 2011 by Cathy Park Hong. Used with permission of the author.