Dave Bonta's "Touchscreen" is a tiny poem about looking at a flower without really being near it. The speaker finds a rose on an app and calls it art, but the statement feels a little uncertain, as if they're trying it out rather than fully believing it. The second stanza deepens that doubt. Pictures come one after another, "without intermission," and the speaker says only that they "almost see."
That word "almost" carries the poem. It suggests a gap between looking at images and actually seeing something. A real rose has scent, thorns, and a place in the world, while a scrolling feed offers a steady stream of pictures with no pause to take any of them in. The title points to the same thing: the screen is something we touch, yet it keeps the rose out of reach.
The mood is quiet, thoughtful, and slightly wistful. The speaker isn't angry at technology, just aware of what gets lost.