Elastic
Any material
Showing just enough
Anywhere in the world--
Was there ever the slightest chance
to dress you freer
With academic pinstripes
Here?
(Is "click here"now a cliché?)
Is being free less certain all the time?
Whatever you are there, here
Your screen is customized
Into a purple zoot suit of flashing pixels
With cool yellow dots per inch
Dressed perfectly genderless
For the virtual occasion
Of this clothing and other users
Vibrating your lowercase,
Bisexual blues.

On this planet of pain we drift upon,
You who use ennui as a life-long network
To rightfully seek the holy
Open source of anything,
You know who you are, pattern setters
Ready made for cool, live-in ideas,
You who sweat exuberance juice
Easily and sweetly,
And you who love to jump out of words
(And skin every now and then)
Aren't our crotches linking
What thinking won't?
You who never forget
About the sexy parts,
Your blood beat is now
A rhythm of new bandwidth,
Eyes bulging packets
To slash those dark pupils
Admitting an improved ratio
Of more color and feeling
Per thought possible,
Increasingly now
Your hands rip into
Keyboards and screens
With alternating current emerging
So naturally, so purely
That all garments
Must go

Will Hochman's latest collection of poems, Greatest Hits, 1973-2003 was recently published by Pudding House Press.

His previous collections of poems are Stranger Within (1993) and Just Around the Corner (with Kim Shkapich, l982). Hochman is the poetry editor of War, Literature and the Arts and Co-Reviews Editor of Academic Writing.

Poems by Hochman have recently appeared in The North American Review, The International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, and The Connecticut Review.

Hochman is a writing teacher at Southern Connecticut State University and Salinger scholar.

Will Hochman can be reached directly at: hochmanw1@southernct.edu