Book Ended

These robotic readers,
these finger-twitch feeders,
their faces lit up by a screen
on buses and trains
simply outa their brains
and a-flicking the ‘page’ in between
on their pads, pods and phones,
which they tap with their bones
so as not to look quite so alone,
scan byte after byte
from the dawn to the night,
and the light’s on, but nobody’s home.

Could you call them well-read
if, inside of their head,
there is naught but the Sensation Post?
Their attention span’s brief
as each digital leaf
contains one hundred words at the most.

But their habit is sanit’ry
and prevents the insanity
of having to converse with strangers
or handle materials with unknown bacterias
and other such intimate dangers.