monument in poetry

there’s a CBGB’s branded restaurant at the Newark airport
someone bought the name after they tore down the real thing
used it to sell vinyl records and overpriced chicken salads
to the rubes just passing through on connecting flights

there’s simulated street art on the walls there
the real street art across the river in New York
tore down for a Starbucks or God knows what then
replicated through a mirror darkly in New Jersey
to make Nebraskans spend another fifty dollars

the airport’s full of hand-sanitizer stations
the airport’s full of touchless bathroom faucets
but at the ersatz Newark International CBGB’s
we paw at a grubby communal iPad to order food
they make you thumb all over a tablet telephone
before the server even comes to your table now
they don’t even bring your water out
until they’ve made the sale

Jesus Christ, we paid our money, at least allow
poor travelers the illusion of human interaction
I don’t wanna play a goddamned iPad flash game
I don’t want a monument to vulture capitalism
trying to sell me a Ramones LP for sixty bones
I just don’t wanna have to wash my hands again
I just want to talk to some real human beings
I just want my thirty-dollar low-carb meal
I just want to get where I’m trying to go