Slant by Keysha Whitaker & Sandy Feinsteinr

Slant

Keysha Whitaker & Sandy Feinstein

Silver slivers of genius rest on laps.
Fingers find hidden paths in electronic forests while
pictures in boxes do corner dances and magic tricks,
watched and ignored.
No sleight of hand here.
Feet up, spines stretched long.
Behind closed doors,
we are the same.
This night.
Every night.

Square plastic buttons invert what is produced under pressure. White letters convene on black
keyboards. Black letters converge on white screens. Silver contains both. (But not me I hope.)
Invisible hands made these choices. Nothing arbitrary about it. Financial exigency perhaps—
deals for the bottom line. Institutional rationality. Have you noticed any alternative, an outlier
insistence for pretty in pink or green with envy? Think back to your first. Recall its shade. That date
with all its attendant quirks. I close my eyes and see gray. Power point defaults to black and white,
which can be replaced with your choice of background colors and layover letters’ shades. Daunting
prospect for rush jobs, basic skills—you name it. For me, it’s the inexplicable light that fascinates.

Sandy Feinstein and Keysha Whitaker have co-authored hybrid poems appearing in the Lehigh Valley Vanguard (fall 2015). Sandy's poems have also appeared in XCP (Cross Cultural Poetics), Columbia Poetry Review, and Facture; this year her poems are in Gyroscope and Praxis Magazine. Keysha’s nonfiction has appeared in The Forward, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and, most recently, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Find her on Twitter @keyshawhitaker. She keeps telling Sandy she's not a poet.

ISSUE TEN: Satyrs Yell "Me!" | ← first poem