Poetry: The Breaking News Notification Banner Only Shows a Preview by Aaron Sandberg

The Breaking News Notification Banner Only Shows a Preview

and from what I can see,

it’s more than mere alarmist,

and I’m cruising on the highway,

and I’m trying to tap-to-app

before its temporary time is up,

and it slips back through the top,

and I swear I saw nuclear attack,

and I’m still driving,

and my speedometer pushes ninety,

and I’m steering with my knees,

and fumbling through the tabs,

and glancing at the road,

but more now at the phone,

back and forth we go,

and just as I open the news,

I slam into a paywall,

and then into a car,

and my life flashes before my eyes

like the first and last sign—

from what I can see—

of some doomsday bomb.

Aaron Sandberg is your mutually assured destruction. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in No Contact, I-70 Review, Alien Magazine, The Shore, Space and Time, West Trade Review, Asimov’s, The Offing, Sporklet, Right Hand Pointing, Monday Night, and elsewhere. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, you can see him—and his poetry—on Instagram.