The Art of Confinement

This is a homage to Elisabeth Bishop's villanelle, "One Art", known for its refrain "The art of losing isn't hard to master".

You can confine me for a year or two

Forcing me to pine in my mental forest until

My face turns blue 

I tremble to think of a shaky fault-line if

I leave my corner

For I fear my computer will become foreigner

So I watch Simone Biles as she dials up a 

Yurchenko double pike 

I try to copy her in my cubicle but feel unsportsmanlike 

In search of new boundless, forbidden marginalized borders

I attempt to loosen mental and physical transformers 

-Even on this page

If only I could find the courage to muster up

A filibuster of paleolibertarian conservative woke jokes 

Or sing about my confinement to the tune of Lionel Richie's "Easy"

Everyday I peer out my window to gawk at my neighbor's tree

-It hasn't moved for a century 

(My tab-key has predicted something about redwoods)

If only I could confine behind the stars of an Amazon feedback request and a comment that says,           "All good."