robert kardashian’s hologram poetica

with a tweet from kim kardashian

for my birthday, kanye
got me the most thoughtful gift
of a lifetime.

much of us results
in an image. a recording
inflates under laser beams,
words upturn objects unutterable.

***

a special surprise
from heaven. a hologram
of my dad.

language, too, is just a filmy
projected specter of our past,

a skirt socialites wear
to kill the aliens inside them.

***

we say god
& mean kim
with her gardenia fragrances.

we say power
& mean nightmarish
two-dimensional fathers.

we say poetry
& mean specular maps
to the afterlife.

***

we gather the scattered
light to project
the dead all over us.

it is so lifelike!

we drift closer
to forms.

***

we watched it over
& over, filled with emotion.

robert kardashian wears
a khaki suit, dances
to barry mann, says
“i watch over you,”

& kim plays him on

loop. the poems
pool over.

but when the lights go
out—both are beautiful,
once-removed.