Portside

In a precisely lighted room, the CFO speaks

of start-to-start dependencies.

Says let me loop back with you.

Says please cascade as appropriate.

It's that time of morning; we can all smell

the doughnut factory. If scent were white

noise, doughnuts would be that scent.

The factory won't sell at any price.

The building next to it burns the animals

we experiment on. I have worked

on a few preclinical reports in my time.

The rhesus monkeys become

so desperate that they attempt suicide,

over and over again. I am legally obligated

to spare you the particulars.

How could things be any different?

Here many choice molecules have been born.

Here. This pill will dissolve like sugar.

Your last five months will be good ones.

San Francisco poet Randall Mann has written 5 books of poetry. He is also the author of a book of criticism and co-author of a poetry writing textbook. He has won numerous awards for his work and was recently the curator of the Poem-a-Day anthology from the American Academy of Poets. David Baker tells us that "Mann imagines anew what it means to connect or to feel at a loss in the age of the Internet.”