never dreamed about throwing
his voice across the Atlantic
all the way to his cousin,
the shopkeeper, in London.
When Bell came knocking
door to door, he just grunted,
kept rocking away on the porch
watching gravel roads with wide eyes
turn into smooth, flat blacktop.
“Never coulda dreamed it,” he’d say.
The future descended
right over his gray head
like a cloud of confusion, awesome.
It crossfaded with his age,
a world he once conquered slipped
from his grip just as cobwebs
of wires were quickly spun
to make the new world shrink.
All these dreams I can’t have –
there must be so many –
I asked a kid on the street the other day
and he just shrugged, well virtually.
But the difference is the future,
it’s coming faster now with more horses
and I want to know who’s riding them;
my Great-Great-Grandfather did not.
