The Bubble by Peter Mladinic

The bubble in the shield of my iPhone 

is flat, silver as spittle,

shaped like candy wax soda bottles 

sold in the 1950s, a bottle you’d eat

not drink from, pure sugar parents 

let their kids to buy. 

Some got allowances, lucky brats!

That laminate bubble bothered me 

but now it’s just part of my life, 

unlike my parents, both dead before data 

was stored in the cloud. Bluetooth:

That the Everly Brothers’ “Birddog” 

comes through my sunglasses

would thrill them. They’d be amazed.

On walkie-talkie banana portables 

with antennas God told them: 

Your day is coming. Phil and Don sang 

“Wake Up, Little Susie.” One night

I lost it, with a brick cracked my Sony 

46 inch screen which I then had to dump.

Today I hear my mother, 

“Bet you’ll never do that again!”  

I remember rainbow colors,

wax soda bottles I broke my teeth.

Peter Mladinic’s fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications.

An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.