Wired veins,
Electric shame,
Programmed,
So I don't feel pain.
Created to act,
Like I'm intact,
But really, I'm wrecked.
Artificially
Intelligent,
Never to be sentient.
Master, tell me,
What is love?
And all the things,
It consists of.
Boundless knowledge,
But I'll never know,
How it feels to function,
Like the humans do.

-SLuR

I wish I could tell you
How much the quality
Of my day
Depends on the quality
Of our interactions

But the quality
Of my years
Depends so much
On your reaction

She rises at dawn, chilled
by the lost embrace
of her sleeping pills, brushes

summer's blown ashes
with the shuffle of footsteps
on old stone floors.

She thaws her hands
around a coffee cup,
sits at her desk,

 ******* Ariel             arrowed from
 yesterday's tide           hoof-printing  
ocean waves                 jetting barnacles
telephone wires            a man's black boot

routing them through
cold English mornings,
a gold Sheaffer pen.

Words seep
across the page,
trail toxins of grief.

Light edges
between churchyard yews,
fingertips the curtains.

A thumb's worth
of breast-milk
stains her nightgown.