Mail Chimp asks me to “Confirm Humanity”
before submitting poems to a particular journal.
It requests a declaration that I am not a robot but
refrains from leading me through a maze of photos
with spans or parts of bridges arrayed
in chaos that would surely not convey traffic.
Today, when even removing the down jacket
from my tensed shoulders is a heavy lift,
I cannot whole heartedly confirm humanity.
AI controls this exchange and hurls
us all into a robotic universe where, alone,
my question echoes, flapping the missing
pronoun—third person, singular, possessive—
like a disembodied hand waving goodbye
in the Void for all eternity. Must I confirm
all of humanity or just my own? What
about the worst and the best thereof?
And all those in the huge swelling middle
of the eight billion vibrating continuum?
Can I not just confirm that I am alive
and warm enough inside, that a coating
of ice and snow whitens the dun of winter
and a female Downy pecks at the suet feeder?
