[Newspoetry] Waiting for the mail to come.

[DL Emerick]

Waiting for the mail to come.

In the old days, there was a time
before the Web spun into being,
all time being now BW or AW, 
although no one is yet sure
when the Web was first born,
when do we celebrate each year.

BW, you'd wait for the mail,
though it came but once a day,
and never, ever on a Sunday,
even if the PostMaster was an uncle
working behind the Postal Counter.

My PC has replaced his counter --
my PC really does count somehow,
or simulates that act of counting,
if right answers are a standard,
and not the thing that does the job.

MY PC runs and gets the mail,
like a dog running for the paper,
once tossed, BW, upon the lawn,
it doesn't roll over for me
to rub its stomach, pat its head.

It's lonely, waiting for the mail.
That hasn't changed at all --
maybe it has gotten worse
when every minute, every second,
every moment might bring a mail.

No longer can you pause the time
to idle, saying, "That letter or card,
has been surely delayed just a day",
and turn from the box in wonder,
speculative until another day.

Anxiety rises and mounts higher,
now that everything is here now,
instantly, if it is available,
faster than light itself,
that's what we now expect.

We want your reply to emails
we haven't yet written or sent,
we want anticipation universals
to make communicative miracles:
we want it in our readers, now.

We have no patience left:
it has all become one thing,
as if connected by quantum being,
we tolerate nothing any more,
no delays, demanding everything.