The Toaster

The toaster is getting fiercer,
it burns toast
even on the lowest setting.
This everyday appliance
happens to be in synch
with our early summer
which is already
unbearably hot.

I wish the toaster
were an AI drone
out of a science fiction novel.
Unplugged, it would hover beside me
providing updates
on world politics
while I move about the house.

Or perhaps it could recite poetry
to give me some solace.
Nothing elegant or epic,
just a few lines of Rilke:

For there is no one anywhere who isn’t
secretly departing, even as he stays.

richard von sturmer