WHEN I’M IN CHARGE

Someday you will realize it was me
and know what you’ve lost.
When the cancer cure is announced,
I will be the anonymous healer.
I will defeat A.I. before it takes over
our world, outwit the hackers,
the scammers and spammers.
You will realize I designed a safe
airbag, cultivated thirty new flavors
of raspberry and pineapple, let
lima beans go extinct. That I wrote
a wildly successful Christmas song.
Like the boy seeing the emperor,
I exposed big lies with one push
of the button, but kept the little ones;
only I knew the difference.
You can thank me for solving
what was known as the gun problem.
We’re all safe in the future because
of what I’ve done, outlawing grief
and its wily predecessor love.

Luanne Castle’s Kin Types (Finishing Line), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Award. Her first poetry collection, Doll God (Aldrich), was winner of the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she studied at University of California, Riverside (PhD); Western Michigan University (MFA); and Stanford University. Her writing has appeared in Copper Nickel, TAB, Glass, Verse Daily, American Journal of Poetry, Broad Street, and other journals.