Grandchild, in case you are born,
you need to know 
there was once a thing
called a movie theater.
Every town had at least one;
some had dozens.
Seats arranged in gradually sloping
terraced rows. A giant screen
at one end, and at the other,
in the larger theaters, a balcony.
The lights would go out,
the film in the projection booth
would begin to roll,
and ghostly images would dance
across the screen, originally
in black and white, later
in glorious technicolor.
Popcorn would be crunched,
butter greased the floor,
clammy hands would find
each other in the dark,
arms snaked around shoulders
and necks, fingers squeezing
the midnight melons
of wool-sweatered breasts.
Those hundreds of gathered humans
would laugh, gasp, and cry together
at the acted-out stories 
unfolding up on the screen.
Bladders would fill 
with Coca-Cola but no one 
would run for the restroom,
no one would talk (at the risk
of being shushed),
and there was no way to pause
or rewind — the concentration
of those audiences sunk in their
collective dream was intense.
Finally the credits would roll,
patrons would file out
into blinding daylight
or twinkling midnight,
cafes would fill with chattering
customers reliving what they had 
just experienced 
in that shared black womb
of the theater.
They might never see the film
again, but it would stay with them—
they’d recall where they were
when they first saw 
Bogart and Bacall kiss, 
when a bored Indiana Jones 
pulled out his heavy gun 
and shot the scimitar-wielding 
bad guy, when Marlon Brando
instructed his men— 
through puffy cheeks 
secretly stuffed with cotton— 
to make someone an offer
they couldn’t refuse.

Who knows what you’ll have
in that post-techno future of yours.
Maybe you’ll have it all,
at the blink of an eyelid 
or twitch of an ear.
Maybe you’ll only have 
a bleached and blasted 
wasteland of the mind.

But at least you’ll have this poem.