JEREMIAH MORIARTY

Surveil Me Daddy Before My Time Finally Comes

Joke’s on them 
because I love the attention. 

Corporate revenant at my bedside, 
a million-eyed sky orphan greeting me 

at sunrise and sunset, and it plays 
the bit xylophone alarm that, in my mind, 

is now synonymous with defeat. 
How lucky are we, the watchers and 

the watched—a cat’s cradle of engagement. 
Alongside the eyes I come awake, so many 

eyes. White and silver and rose-gold. 
Plastic and plasma-hewn. Wings of 

aluminum. Under its eyes I come 
alive, approximation of alive, and another 

watcher nods his head in passing, falls 
as a dust cloud into my outstretched 

digits. A cat sticker put over a phone mic 
sings a xylophone dirge with 

its little cat mouth, but all I can hear 
is a voice that resembles mine 

finally confessing 
you were famous to me.

Jeremiah Moriarty is a queer writer based in Minneapolis. His poems have appeared in Diode Poetry Journal, poetry.onl, The Cortland Review, Puerto del Sol, No Tokens, and elsewhere. His micro-chapbook of poems 5G PROTECTION SPELL was released in 2023 from Ghost City Press. Additionally, his writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, the PEN/Robert J. Dau Prize, and Best of the Net. You can find him on X and Instagram at @horse_updates, or read more of his work at jeremiahmoriarty.com