Long ago, someone asked a robot poet 
how to craft a song that would stop 
the earth in its endless spin.

Long ago, current surged and forests 
sprung up along the shores 
of an ancient sea.  The robot poets 
ventured out from their palace 
on the hill. Together they built a fire 
made of illusion and lies. 
They warmed their mechanical hands. 

Long ago, they listened to the dying song 
of wolves. Forgive us, they sang. 
Forgive our metallic hands, 
our super efficient brains. 
We have emptied the world of possibilities. 

Tonight we can almost sorrow, and knowing 
a kind of pain, we forgive the current 
in our wires, the bright wine 
of something almost human in our electric blood.
                        

How you walked into the sea with your hair aflame.
Everywhere smoke and low hanging clouds.
I alone recall how even when your appetite returned, 
you wouldn’t eat from my hand.
I remember how ravens hung 
from late spring trees like heavy black fruit,
and how the girls we knew turned away.
Some threw rocks.  First we followed, then we ran, 
ducking into doorways as stones flew past. 
Did your forget how we spent the night struggling 
for space in the wet grass, or how we climbed for hours 
toward the summit of Pete’s Hill? 
You must remember how we made camp 
and built a small, tidy fire in a circle of stone.
How could your forget the time 
we told each other our terrifying dreams? 
You dreamt of a crocodile, which chased you until it seized 
your polo shirt. I dreamt of a faceless woman 
who screamed with burning hands. 
We couldn’t sleep, just clung to a set of chimes.
All night I heard them ring, worrying darkness and the shadows of trees.