Common

The American common is no collective or princedom but privacies of need & pleasure as they intersect in public spaces, tho the insufferable powers that be breed their plots behind our backs, thinking us witless, seemingly blind to their afflicted intentions, just a bunch of demographic motormouths & screw-ups to be targeted by commodities traders & search engines— a marketing niche for every need, stereotypes tagged by algorithms—here is a typical team of baton twirlers in an airport bar, each of them clad in foxy red track suits & tuned-in to the dollhouse stimulations of pigeon-talking sales reps;there is a previously undetected aggregation of retirees, evangelical camp kids, kickass bowlers, and mothy nuns in starched wimples, for whom the news of the day means the aging boy-man Hugh Grant's fear of double chins—neither of these or any other data dump entirely false, but so narrow-minded sometimes as to lose sight of us entirely: the midtown lady in Capris, a four-square surgeon off-duty & headed out to play poker, the plumber fly-fishing by the river— a sky of twilight slate now—not a word written on it.