Wii Death: Or, The One Thing I Don’t Need On My Day Off
According to your new wonder toy,
based on height, weight, the year I was born,
my Wii age is eighty-six, which means
I’ve taken on four decades just by stepping aboard,
but it doesn’t account for the carpeted floor,
or the fact that I just had a big meal, or that I’m fully
dressed–belt, keys, loose change, lots of other things
weighing me down–and you never even warned me
I’d be this close to the end when you handed over the control,
just said, how about a soccer match, which sounded fun,
not like I’d need to call a funeral director, make final plans,
but here is this machine I only just met, a stranger really,
telling me I’m overweight, jumping to conclusions,
based on what my feet suggest, failing to consider
how much I work out, but, no, according to this,
I’m just moments from my own Wii death, which will come,
inevitably, with you chasing me down an imaginary field,
as I try for some spectacular score, as I leap high into the air,
head the image of a ball toward a make believe goal,
not even the real me, in the end, with the real you, just
a bit of green, some simulated applause, the screen going blank.
(first published in Best Poem)