We're not robots. We can identify
traffic lights, cars, motorcycles,
stairs, the darkness that wraps
even obstinate monuments in burial
cloths when the sun goes down.
We get a scrambled-up word, a code
to authenticate in at least two
ways and we comply. But in this
kind of darkness, we've come to know
the difference between the explosion
of fireworks and that of vessel
strikes in open water, the heat
signatures of drones, their high-
pitched buzzing. A blade can pass
lightly over skin to uncover its hidden
lights. But deeper brings on the recoil,
the flinch, reflexes of confusion,
anger. We feel this and this and see
the similar flicker across strangers'
faces in waiting rooms of doctors,
in lines at the grocery store,
at the rental office. The machine
might never seem to run out of memory
during a computation, but unboundedness
is not the same as infinity. What we
don't know could be the wound
that keeps us hoping, alive.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
