Spectator

I picked up my laptop and threw it at the dark TV first thing this morning. Neither shattered; the computer splashed into the the tube of the Zenith and vanished. Surprised by the lack of noise, I got up close and saw it in there, hanging in space, spinning slowly.

It will get bored without me, I told myself. It will become tired. So I threw the recliner after it and soon the laptop was sitting in the recliner. Since there was no way for it to watch TV inside the TV, I threw a copy of Berryman’s “The Dream Songs” in there and soon there was a nice tableau of the silver Mac and the black book in the green chair — hard to see unless you are right on top of the set, but it is unmistakable, and so handsome in there.

But what do I do now that everything is inside the TV? (Turning it on is out of the question — who knows what that might do to them? I may be impulsive, but I am not cruel.) You may say I should go after them, but then who would be out here to toss in things they, or we, might need? I do not know if it works both ways, or if they’re trapped.

I’ll toss in a cell phone and wait for a call. But what shall I do while I am waiting? One can only take so many showers before one begins to wash away. One can only write so many poems before one longs to see them made into movies. One can only hope for so long before falling through the black screen.