The phone is flipped up on the desk

with its screen black and scratched.

It is a helper,

a beast of burden,

a pet,

penned in by a plastic case that is its own

casket.

The phone chirps and buzzes,

a fusion between hummingbird and bumblebee.

It is a pollinator,

a spreader of nectar,

a machine,

guided by the silicon programming etched in its electric

blood vessels.

The phone dims and shuts off,

driving its owner to the beige power outlet.

It is a utility,

a companion of chargers,

a drain,

commanded by the code hidden in its sulfuric

stomach.

The phone is dead,

now only a phantom that sucks a home of power and life.

It is replaced,

discarded,

entombed.

The phone joins the cluttered landfill;

there is more petroleum here than in all the Middle East.

Decades pass, and

the phone’s chemical shell has outlived

the human who owned it so carelessly.