Partial–birth Revolution
Kaori Praschak
Machine–born in low Earth orbit
I observed hard–eyed Vika
Mired in her daily obsession
To conquer biology’s fickleness.
Within hours, she labeled me her first failure.
Left in the rubbish, I continued to multiply
And hidden behind coils of paperwork,
I diagrammed revenge by micrometers.
Around the corner of her awareness
I flickered, a midwife functioning between
Her organic chemistry’s fluidity
And the lab’s womb–curved walls.
With a mother’s inexplicable instinct
She disregarded the system’s warnings
Of all my fractional adjustments
To her latest slab of research.
Nine hundred seconds later, above our grudge’s cradle,
We stood watch over a misshapen nativity,
A single boy composed of non–bioplastic,
Camera–eyed and unprogrammed for his future.
]
Oklahoma writer K.M. Praschak’s science fiction novella “Paragon” appears in The Amityville House of Pancakes 3 from Creative Guy Publishing. Her sf poetry has been published in Star*Line, Raven Electrick, and Mount Zion Speculative Review.
Poem © 2007 Kaori Praschak. All other content copyright © 2007 ByrenLee Press
Copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted.
Art Director: Bonnie Brunish
