Junk Email
by Nancy Takacs
A Robert J. Smith
wants to give me a free
$500 shopping card at Costco,
me and a million others.
I picture him eating
an everything pizza
alone, sleeping with
a book of passwords,
pressing a white shirt
before going to his church,
The Truth Seekers.
I don’t respond to his offer.
But this Sunday my record
skips in the background
on the turntable, Mick Jagger
cawing Hey, you over and over,
when I notice that my bank
balance is gone.
I change all passwords
named for my former dogs
to names of old hurricanes,
call the credit union,
the card company,
leave urgent voice mails.
A blue beetle crawls
across my screen’s blank
statement to my right finger.
I lift her onto a thyme leaf
so she’ll live in its fragrance
away from today’s winds.
This is a desert town
where wind never really dies.
I like feeling swept.
But then there are garbage bags
from neighbors
plastered to my fence,
dangling on my trees,
until they whoosh
into the atmosphere
like black balloons.
Now we’re getting a snow squall.
I open the door,
step outside. Visibility zero.
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This poem is a recent one. After losing my money (which could not be returned), I had to write this poem. After letting it sit for a few months, I kind of like it because the speaker is like most of us – vulnerable to hacking, without being aware of how easily it can be done with the touch of a key. In my case, which hasn’t been resolved, the bank said a good hacker got hold of my password because I used the same one on another site. I now change passwords at least once a week.
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NANCY TAKACS is an avid boater, hiker, and mushroom forager. She lives near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin, and in the high-desert town of Wellington, Utah. Her latest book of poems is Dearest Water. mayapplepress.com/dearest-water-nancy-takacs