Won't Get Foiled Again

We step through the modern looking glass.

'Sand is to glass as digits to internet':

we know this mirrored world

is full of eel-trap fables

and conmen’s piracies.

The truth hides in the plainest sight,

the simplest text, the dullest font,

image-less and with no video;

tik-tok? Time’s up

scroll down, swipe left,

x marks the spot

- top-right.

Complot-thinkers, wild hair woven

into bacofoil headgear,

spread the modern chain-letters

far beyond

two or three letterboxes

down the street.

For who knows any neighbour

living so very far away?

We lose our way,

the signposts are not just reversed,

they are multiplied

in this hall of mirrors,

made of binary choices,

disguised as algorithms.

And what is any looking glass,

but silvered-material behind

the alchemised sand?

As shiny and reflective

as the crumpled foil

on the heads of those

staring into it.