Category: poem

He steps over white coat bodies,
out to corridor–two long walls.
There, another white coat yells,
“You can’t leave without…”
“Hello, my name is Adam.”

He steps over white coat body,
heading to where noises are
and–strange, strange–
no walls around him
or over him!

He had been taught
how to talk to those
with clothes like his
and those in white coats
always with him.

But too many people.
He veers right to quiet
shade-speckled parkway.
50 feet ahead, dark suited
man approaching, casually
scanning left and right.
Closer, slim red-dressed woman
coming, pushing baby carriage.

Front wheel bounces over
some small cast off thing,
jarring swaddled content
which suddenly screams
annoyance.

Screams mean danger!
He hurls carriage 100 feet,
baby flying out noiselessly,
colliding with distant oak.
He speaks to red dress,
“Hello, my name is Adam.”

Dark suit shouts, “Freeze!”
Something black pointing at him,
he grabs red dress’s arm,
from 30 feet, flinging
her at dark suit.

Shield showing
in breast pocket, he ducks,
jumping over now prostrate
red dress, gun barking
one shot to man’s left leg.
No affect.
Next shot to chest.
No effect.
With two hands holding,
gun barking again.
An eye explodes,
bullet burrowing deep.
A hideous, unworldly ,
“Hello, my name …”

Dead, though never really alive.

Dark suit squats anxiously
by red dress flat on her back,
one arm oddly twisted, temple raw,
eyes closed, but a pulse.

“Friggin’ robot,” he mutters
to the sounds of loudening
sirens, angry, plaintive
background music for
Putnam Science Center
white coats and
ordinary business suits
closing in on unordinary
business gone rogue.

“Make them if you must,”
he says sadly to space,
“But for God’s sake,
make them humane-
or we’re done for.”

Half saved, red dress weeps
for her loss and our anxiety.