2 Poems by Philip Vassallo

Bypassing Microprocessors

The office is not really one
but the technological refuse
of electronic calculations
and diametric parameters

that rumor has it a human
once created well before
he imagined exactly
what it all would do

and what else could she do
but what she does here
let her trichotillomania
get the best of her

as printouts screech through
the closet in endless reams,
you’d think fed by the Seven Dwarves
somewhere beyond this

white drop ceiling
white semigloss walls
white vinyl tile floor
white laminate countertops

and her own internal
operating system
housed in a terminal
whose time too will come

Fortune Cookie 40: On Questioning

Fear not to ask a soul a question
you know can have no answer,
as long as first you ask yourself 
and next despise your response.

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Philip Vassallo’s poetry most recently appears in Lucky Jefferson, The Elevation Review, and Boston Literary Magazine. Visit www.philvassallo.com to learn more about him and his work.