Katherine DiBella Seluja

After reading the government will spend $20 million on gloves that will shock you

And when I say shock, I mean volts of electricity searing into your body.

A shock nineteen times stronger than what I’m using right now to type this page, and
three times stronger than the Winnie the Pooh bedside lamp that glows in your child’s
bedroom.

When I say glove, I mean black leather embedded with electrodes that will wrap its
fingers around your neck, your wrist, your calf, your groin.

You, human conductor. Short-term transistor. Resistor ready or not, documented or not.
Say government, as in built on addiction to pain.

The manufacturer includes a warning: gloves not meant to be used on children or
pregnant people. Not to be used unless another is holding the victim still.

Warning, as in things to avoid.

Sit still and imagine the voltage, sit still for the sizzling pain.

Listen to the death beat in your ear

above the pounding searing soaring burning, tearing crying screaming running spending
stealing bleeding burning blood in my chambers blood in my ears pounding

throbbing

crying

Katherine DiBella Seluja is a poet and micro fiction writer. She believes our written words have inherent power.
She is the author of three poetry collections. Her chapbook, Elixir for Discontinuation of the Species, is forthcoming from Ambidextrous Bloodhound Press. Katherine is a poetry editor at Unbroken Journal. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.