Palely Azoic, by Zach Buscher

My pigment.

My pigment & its lack.

My pigment pegs me for a gamer.

Which, to your surprise, I am not.

Today’s games total yesterday’s offspring.

& yesterday lacks contingency.

Upon me, a Futurist.

Forward thinking as my forbears are fossilized.

Italians & Russians mostly.

Their bayonets flapped golden tickets in the sun.

They dug latrines & sat gilded upon them.

Fate was dressing for the front lines.

Your logic is likewise dial-up.

Calls for if a Futurist, I’d be out there too.

I’d be out there, ushering era with a wave.

But your logic’s old as the flag, full of holes & precedent.

Like the war it lacks any sense of progress.

Though to bad credit waged reductively as a button.

Gamers call it a God Key.

One touch extinguisher.

If that’s what you’re into.