You’re connected. You’ve got bars.
  This is your gateway portal.

Your memory disk. You, virus
  in the desktop dark. Complex history

of your own unique searching.
  Spy wary. Risk averse. Leaving

behind you a wake of cookies.
  Meme after meme after meme.

The scowling cat and the birthday cake.
  The tortoise and the hare.

You are the targeted advertisement
  selling open-toed summer shoes,

on sale buy-one-get-one free, and
  you are also the advertisee. Both

summative and formative,
  the black point of an arrowed mouse

hovering. You are uncovering.
  Typing your story with the precision

of navigation, as if stepping out
  and into a blank field of space.

You launch. Roam and rove.
  Read and repeat. Backlit, a core

processing unit pumping its cooling
  air, thump-thumping like the blood

swishing through the miraculous bandwidth
  of your heart. Let it all come at you.

Data driven. The elegant design.
  The sublime. The way you enter

all you can before you’re out of time.


Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Orison Award nominee, her poems have been published in a variety of journals, including The Penn Review, Tar River Poetry, Radar, The Shore, The West Review, Community College Humanities Review, West Trestle Review, SOFTBLOW, Rust + Moth, Glass: A Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. ANIMAL (Futurecycle Press, 2021) is her most recent collection. Find out more at: www.aliciamariehofman.com