The microwave reads twelve thirty,
in one minute it will read twelve thirty
plus one more,
unmindful, it will flicker
again, passing through uncertainty to
register twelve thirty-two,
by which time my plastic halo
will have puffed its cheeks and,
full to popping, forced its vapour tongue
to trickle down my throat
and into lungs.
Do you think we would ever
have seen the day where a microwave
might turn around and say,
“My back aches, I cannot possibly
think while in such pain,
my brain is numb,
my feelings caught, sucked
out of me. Please, comfort me?”
Or would it simply tip
forward, until gravity gripped,
and wrenched the plug.
I pray the latter.
A man once said
robots feel,
he was a brash man
firey and to the quick,
and to the end a sad man,
I wished him well.
Oh me, the world is saved
and the microwave reads
twelve thirty-three.