Even here the rows of urinals
Are “automatic-sensor-operated.”
There’s a laser eye that watches me
Unzip my pants so when I zip them up
It does the flushing for me seven times.
Above my head the ceiling has a speaker

Dishing out the sticky sentiments
Of country music, giving me advice,
Clichés and platitudes, that tell how not
To live my life.
Out in the lobby again
A road map on the wall says, “You Are Here!”
And I can press a button near the map
To catch the weather service bulletin:
“It’s partly cloudy in Mobile tonight.”

I wonder why it matters if the clouds
Are out at night, but I remember how
Sometimes I’ve seen the stars go blank in places
And been told that it was flocks of birds
Migrating in the dark too high to see.

There’s melatonin in their pineal glands
Behind their beaks to let them find their way
By sensing minute changes in the light,
Unlike my kind whose senses have become
So insignificant that only words
And widgets thought in words can get us home.

It’s been reported on the radio
That certain cars are being made today
With GPS devices in the dash
So drivers needn’t worry with directions,
Reading road signs, having to stop and ask.

And if you watch the sky at night you’ll see
The orbits of the satellites that catch
And send the signals of the world, what song
To sing for whom, which urinal to flush.

Back in my truck I hang my head out, looking
More at the constellations than the road
As if to follow my nose and navigate
From star to star, as the crow flies, like geese
And all the hoards of fowl that need no sign
To beat the shortest course from A to Z.