Thank you for sending me my invisible robot arm.
           
For all those wires and guarantees, I expected it
to throw and lift, at least to punch,
but it doesn't.
                         It only holds.

It started with a glass, then a sponge, then a table, a room,
a skyscraper, an iceberg.
                                            It thinks it can keep the world together
by grasping.

Right now, it has seized you and me, and we don't even feel it.

We don't know what it's like to be alone
when we're solitary in the car, strolling with our tan coats
pulled close against the wind, watching the news
explain again
                         the way wars go.
It has a slow, deep way of pulling us closer.

But you promised me mighty, elbow, flex, and fists.
Where can I get with this?

Where can I walk on this whole earth
without carrying everywhere and everything I've been?

__

This is the only survivor of a series of complaint letters I wrote about imaginary products.