Bill Rector Verse-Virtual 2017 July

July 2017

I am a gastroenterologist, living with my wife in Denver. Most of my poetry is not medical. My work has appeared most recently in Field, Rattle, and Hotel Amerika.

the platform

Embedded in your phone
or in the cloud
or glowing in the dash
of your car
as you navigate the night
is a platform
that displaces where you are,
directions to your destination,
and the way back again.

Take off your hat.
Look at the label.
Look at the evening sky.
Like the Star the App
provides North but also more:
time of day, sunrise and sunset,
and when the moon
will once again cross the dark
lake in a birch bark canoe.

Have you ever
waited so long
for your car to appear
that when you awoke now
and then had become
a single place,
a single word?

Like calipers had closed
lightly on your temples,
then opened, and something inside
had been measured?

The Twentieth Century Limited
flashes past
in the opposite direction.

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