There he is, between the Siberian Tiger and the Maui's Dolphin, **** Mobilis Nullius. She does not own a cellphone. Text for her is the letters and words that make up a book. If he wants to take a picture, he'll use a camera, thanks. She doesn't want to download, upload, freeload, overload, girl, you've got to carry that load of debt to the telco company. He watches movies in the cinema and he doesn't want to be hooked up to the internet or caught in the ever-widening net of commerce. She's happy with the ancient ways, songlines on the landline lines on the land where a woman can walk away and hear only the ringing of bird song, lines on the land a man can follow to the heart of somewhere lost and know only peace.
Copyright Andrew M. Bell, reproduced with kind permission of "Presto" magazine, Christchurch in whose pages this poem first appeared.