Ode to Autocorrect

Because it changes O’Hare to o hate,

o hate, o hate — over and over, no matter

how many times I retype it. O hate, like

an American tune, an American fable

where, yo, you can enter an o hate

bathroom, take a selfie in the mirror

cuz your sister wants to see the pockets

of your Great American Rhinestone Jeans.

Because, on a street called Viewpoint,

I get home becomes I get guns, off a road

on a mission to kill every squirrel-ish

pedestrian. Because he was packing,

concealed, threatening to use it, use

his hands or feet. My feet, iamb

of a son of a birch, of a brick chatting

with the devil, with God, with a listener

not listening. Because he’d gone bonnets,

his garden bounty a faded wine, his wife’s

linguine a longing for a golden ear,

so I took her to the botanical gardens

in my getaway car, to a fruit on a vine,

but the limes went lemur, the night to nonfat,

the clear to catastrophic. Because driving away

from the frog man croaking hypocrite,

heavenly went down like a melting hedge,

a gal gone hog-tied, a fish crying, a tiger-

tiger togetherness, flight or fucked,

a heart, stroked, racing to its vicarious

carousel, a fungus lashed to a beam gone

beleaguered. Because he will kill her,

that’s his plan: to kill us all. Can’t commit

or commute, can’t debone his breath,

can’t take his acute paranoia, chalk it up

to cute. Because this here’s a Josie

madhouse, a bedroom bedrock-locked.

Because Blvd morphed to Bled, spirit

summoned with a Ouija board. Because

soap holder went love hen, though love

had flown the Calycanthus

like the grilled portobellos messing

with his vowels. Please please, I pleaded

to the pleading day. Because prayer

is like a bread line, a penny for your

exploded mind. Because lots of logs

to you, ma, because so sorry went poem.