Two-sided Wishes

What is today's 
portion, your officemates ask

You close your eyes in group meditation 
but for how long

Can a choir of plucked cicada wings 
vibrate inside their sealed plastic wrapper

Labor is still 
labor even from a distance

The governor has caught it and his wife 
has caught it

and Senator X has caught it but not the ones 
who go around flaunting 

their dislike of science and the roundness
of this earth

Who is secretly 
waiting for the first among them to fall

Karma the chick who reads 
feathered cards and strings ylang-ylang  

Karma the boy who waits
at day's end for unsold bread at the bakery  

Do you remember what it was like 
to be touched or stranded

with others in a train in the middle of a bridge 
high up in the mountains at night