Signals

The artist Lorie Leininger’s work sits
around the warehouse where I work.
The black ink prints lean, rolled in a tubes.

Outside there’s a vast amount of rays
bouncing from mouth to outer space and
then to the ears of the breeding deaf.

Mirroring each other, distorted twins,
twisted in a squelch, technological madness.

I look at a piece of hers titled “Baboon”
and think about human-kind.

I’m not sure why, it’s just
a solitary baboon sitting.

Maybe because it looks like it just lost
the lottery or had its APR raised to 23% on a
credit card that rests, uneasy in the damp
rear pocket of imaginary pants.

Or could it be that the baboon’s eyes seem
to lust for truth, redemption for what once
appeared to be so clear.

Only to have it all slither through man-like
hands, a paintbrush never applied to canvas.