Visitations

Come on in. Try our new Chicken Selects.
Forget food. We should send them luggage.
Watch this sexy star win in just five words.
Do you like who your party elects?
You could always reverse your mortgage.
A better demographic is diehard nerds.
We’ve never seen a storm like this before.
Get cash: Sell us your diabetes strips.
What’s worse than all is that the world won’t end.
Buy “Flip This House” and be a millionaire.
Call now to book amazing summer trips.
You’ve typed up your break-up. Now hit send.
Won’t you take a moment to show you care?
We’ve never seen a storm like this before.
Here’s one weird old trick to get rid of belly fat.
Go on. Guess who just got a Guggenheim.
It’s true. Everyone says you drink too much.
A great run of growth has finally gone flat.
It’s pointless in our time to use rhyme.
You really are just entirely out of touch.
We’ve never seen a storm like this before.
A mob has formed outside the convention.
We have no way of knowing what’s kept offshore.
Please hang up now or choose an extension.
We’ve never seen a storm like this before.

Ernest Hilbert is the author of three collection of poetry, Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, and Caligulan, which was selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize. He lives in Philadelphia where he works as a rare book dealer, opera librettist, and book reviewer for The Washington Post. His poem “Mars Ultor” will appear in Best American Poetry 2018.