Portside

Drones

By Jennifer L. Knox

Friends, we’re living in a golden, fleeting moment wherein rich

people are buying very expensive toys that fly higher than

airplanes and can land anywhere— on your fire escape, in

your yard—and photograph you

through your curtains with a surveillance camera, record things

you’re saying with a high-powered microphone. Scientists

originally built the toy to murder people

in other countries, and now rich people in this country want

to buy them. Why? I have absolutely no idea, but I can’t wait

to kill one: shoot it with a shotgun, shoot it with the hose,

wing it with rocks, pick the wings off, light it on fire, and

stomp the plastic bits to splinters. Rich people will be

outraged that their toys are being destroyed, then lobbyists

will make destroying the toys illegal, so we must move fast.

The cleverest of us already are: down in our basements, under

the gun.

The New York Times Book Review said Jennifer L. Knox's new book, Days of Shame and Failure, "hits, with deceptive ease, all the poetic marks a reader could want: intellectual curiosity, emotional impact, beautiful language, surprising revelation and arresting imagery." Jennifer is the author of four books of poems. Her work has appeared four times in the Best American Poetry series as well as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and American Poetry Review. She teaches at Iowa State University. www.jenniferlknox.com