Metamorphosis by M.A. Schaffner

Metamorphosis
Items we can live without flourish
in a rich medium of advertisements
spouting from the bodies of passersby
like electronic organs or neuro-
fibromatosic blossoms covering
first the eyes and lips so one sees and tastes
increasingly only approved stimuli
linked to additional manifestations
until eventually the consumer
as host is itself consumed and becomes
but an appendage of its appendages
and an ambulatory ad for the same
advertising programs so that eating,
drinking, conversing, and reproducing
are the acts of a new, ephemeral species,
less ephemeral with repetition, less
ephemeral, in the end, than the host.

About the Poet
M. A. Schaffner has had poems published in Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Agni, Poetry Ireland, Poetry Wales, and elsewhere. Other writings include the poetry collection The Good Opinion of Squirrels, and the novel War Boys. Schaffner spends most days in Arlington, Virginia or the 19th century.