They have gathered once again, celebrating their freedom
From the tyranny of cable and storage space
(Assuming the requisite hardware and appropriate licensing)
A chummy confab of vendors and visionaries,
Ex-socialists who left university to sail with Greenpeace,
First lieutenants doing their damndest
To appear at ease in civilian polos and khakis,
All comers from all corners to congratulate themselves
On breaching the divide separating mere data from magic.

Two or three blocks down from the convention center
A narrow storefront hosts an exhibition of ether-only comics
Operating outside the nettling constraints of editors, of syndication
Sits, under an opaque and slightly scratched piece of plexiglass
A yellowing comic of uncertain vintage
In which a cat, unbridled by panels, gender, or standard grammar
Is the recipient of a mouse-tossed brick whose flight,
Unfettered by probability, physics, even time itself
Squarely strikes its target, the projectile itself
An inexplicable alchemy of confusion, mirth, frustrarion
And the impossibility of an undeniably pure love.