REAGAN UPSHAW’s selected poems In the Panhandle was published by Kelsay Books in 2024. He makes his living as an art appraiser in the Hudson Valley of New York, where he also gardens and keeps bees.
Selfies
The Louvre announced that it will build
a new extension made to house
the Mona Lisa only. This
should handle all the milling crowds
lifting their smartphones to attempt
a selfie with the famous face.
The Prado or the Vatican,
or any other well-known place
is filled today with tourists taking
selfies with a culture’s flower
as if a feigned proximity
could somehow let them share its power.
Expect to find them on return
scrolling though photographs to see
not art by Michelangelo,
but Michelangelo and me!
Perhaps a moving sidewalk is
on order for the Louvre to speed
the crowds effectively along
while meeting this insistent need.
So they will stand, facing away,
lost in themselves. All they will save
are images unreal as shadows
on the back wall of Plato’s cave.
The Facebook Dead
Today’s the birthday of your childhood friend,
Facebook proclaims, as if inviting cheers
for the birthday boy, completely unaware
the friend depicted has been dead for years.
Algorithms cannot be embarrassed
by such a contretemps. They do as told
and do not know the dear, departed friend
will age no more while you are growing old.
Some people do not wince at the faux pas,
writing to Facebook, “Please remove this name!”
but use the prompt as opportunity
to send their friend good wishes all the same.
Like birthday flowers left upon a grave,
these sad, one-sided offerings are but
attempts to deal with loss, a birthday gift
the dead cannot accept. That gate is shut.
REAGAN UPSHAW’s selected poems In the Panhandle was published by Kelsay Books in 2024. He makes his living as an art appraiser in the Hudson Valley of New York, where he also gardens and keeps bees.