Adam Malinowski
City
I am an indebted though not entirely disaffected subject of a once-prosperous Brownfield. Each movement predicated on an infinite square-mile grid, marked by brass and iron. Gulls circle high above freighters in the bronze river. Each one of us zooms by in aluminum exoskeletons, our own little kingdoms, ghosts meeting in the chip aisle at Wal-Mart. Everything here resembles itself. So many millions of people, we could add them all up, make perfect algorithms out of them, their dreams, ideas, and romance. On a QR code scooter, riding past blocks of husks of houses and schools turned county jails. Though I don’t complain, I’ve got Prime, Whole Foods, a gym membership. I’ve consolidated my loans and pay off my credit card in monthly installments. Dear reader, even this poem is paid for by selling my wet dreams to digital content managers, 24-month zero-interest rates, and scraps from a failing university. I am a liability and only in death will my improprieties be forgiven.
Poems by Adam Malinowski have appeared in Poets Reading the News, Philosophical Idiot, and in Mirage #5/Period(ical) #6. They hold an MA in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University, live in Detroit, and facilitate a poetry workshop at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Mich.
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