“Phone use is to blame, research suggests.”
— The Washington Post
Look up, look up! Look what’s happening
to our downcast generation, evolving in real time,
skeletons adapting to the strains of modern life
faster than you can say genetic mutation.
When scientists look under the skin with X-ray vision,
they see what comes from looking at our phones
too long and hard: stony spurs, tough cellular tufts,
miniature towers building outward, skyward. So this
is what it means to be horny in the digital century,
in lust with a different kind of hand-held fantasy.
So this is the new, improved, bone-anchored antenna,
receiving, transmitting unlimited. So this is the spot,
base of the skull, top of the neck, tender to the touch,
spinal tether, where we start in spite of ourselves
to change. Look into it. Hey, humans, look out
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Sasha Stiles is a creative director, strategist, artist and writer whose work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Meridian, Rattle and elsewhere. A graduate of Harvard and Oxford, she writes frequently about technology and transhumanism. Her debut poetry collection, Technelegy, is forthcoming.
Photo by Shahar and Sayers via Scientific Reports.
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