In the land of fake plenty
there’s a road paved with money.
If you’re something enough,
you can get on this road
but mostly you cannot.
Unless you can pull yourself up
on the straps of those boots
they stole from you.
Listen when the robot drones speak
from two sides of their mouth.
Do what you can to learn that language.
Try our six-week, no money back
guaranteed language
immersion experience
Time is running out. Send
your first-born child.
Or give us your planet.
We can work with you on this.
Payment plans are available,
but you must act now.
Each day is an equivocation
of that which they said
they did not say the day before.
Who can imagine?
Look here, look there, look away, they say,
And do not do what I would not do.
Or do it, at your own risk.
Advice is cheap. Money
is expensive. Walls are being built
as we speak.
The poems of Lisa Vihos have appeared in numerous journals, both print and online. Her fourth chapbook Fan Mail from Some Flounder was published by Main Street Rag Publishing in 2018. She is the poetry and arts editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal and the Sheboygan organizer for 100 Thousand Poets for Change.