Photographs, videos

   
     
They hold onto our bodies like explosive devices,    
it was clear at the time we provided the buttons,    
provided the mechanisms, filmed how to use them 
but what isn't clear is when the consent is retracted,    
when the contract is defective,    
when explicitly or non-explicitly
one no longer wants their energy exposed
to the universe or even to the light of one room.    
But it isn't small margins,    
those who collect these bleak weapons,
mass destruction in the aether of time,    
no longer of use, or not use I'd want to ponder,    
folk file them, name them,    
sit in the dark, pressurise keys on them.    
It's not quite detonation,    
a mass share in a sordid web      
but it's still on the wire    
of something close to it.    
Technological edging, perhaps.    
I wonder if you asked them,    
the Tiffanys, Sophias,    
Annabels, David, Jamies of the world    
if they consent to you holding    
historic vulnerabilities in your palm    
if they'd be okay, if you'd care -    
but I suppose we already know the answers    
to both of those hypotheticals.
They echo on the air.
So one goes holding the weaponry    
and the power play lives on.