Automaton with Minerva

It’s a brittle day to start the brittle season,
when everything gets dark and we are told
this is a good thing, like the sun isn’t our

best friend. But this is what we have to look
forward to now, prepping for the age when
all we do is die, constantly, over and over,

reborn with a black aqualung, a microprocessor
and a Minerva complex, as evolution moves
even quicker if you’re rich with a spanner

in your coffin. And in all these reincarnations
maybe you will be fortunate enough to have
a moment where you meet the augmented

projection of the one you loved the most; they
take a wing off their back and give it to you,
a momento viviere to try and hold on to in the

roiling anthropocenic smog. Say, what was that
tune you played in Florence? ‘Rosebud’, wasn’t
it? Didn’t that world survive too, after the notes

broke on to the floor, into the fire? Play it again,
play it again, play it again, play it again, play it
again again again again again again again again.