for a minute there it felt
like I could punch a hole
through that vast tarp of
stars and pull you through,
across distance and time,
through veils of galaxies,
through the whole cold
empty maw of space. for
a minute there I saw you
through that dark veil,
through the red light in my
eyes that blurs the world,
rearranges it in bleak,
decimal-point precision.

there is always this light
now.  a panicked sound
of someone coming with
bad news.  for a minute
there I felt this veil will
fall and reveal some
happier truth, an alternate
ending.  a director’s cut
to override the sadness,
put us back as we were.

for a minute there, in this
new plastic silence, alone
with my own breath like
the hush of a distant water
fall, from somewhere deep
in this new machine, I real
ize how real this is.  how
quick and brutal it is to be
taken apart and reborn as
something else.  something
half yourself, half an armored
set of sockets and empty
spaces.  tenderest places
galvanized.  a gapped return
to some humanish assemblage,
a bricolage of a man.  put me
on a pedestal somewhere,
marvel at me.  is it unfair
that I can no longer escape
the processed in and out
of my own breath?  the

betrayal of a fully auto
mated heart is that it
never quits when you
want it to.