On the theme of Life Cycle
Love In the Time of Replacement Bodies
When you and I are cyborgs, will we still
be married? Will we renew our vows
each time we upgrade, click Yes on our unread
Love-EULA? And when we go to space,
brains clad in some as-yet unnamed metal–
or better still, in something named by sci-fi
or comic writer–will our love be affirmed
by whatever authorities govern
such things? I want to propose in orbit,
have the ceremony conducted as
we’re lowered to Mars’s surface by sky-crane,
honeymoon on Titan’s ethane lakes,
which we could do because we’re cyborgs
and still in love no matter the planet or moon.
One Day, Maybe Soon
I’ll get an email. Maybe
a call, but I bet an email
saying my father has fallen
too hard this time and won’t
be getting up again
until the paradise I don’t
believe will ever come
comes. I bet an email
but maybe a call this once.
This is the part of the poem
where I should insert some
list of images from home–
a pre-tied necktie, bric-a-brac
hermetic with personal meaning–
but I don’t have them. My father
is dying and I don’t know what
the inside of his home looks like,
can’t name a single thing he owns
with certainty. The last time
I saw him, we ate at the Chili’s
in Boerne, Texas. I think
it was a Tuesday night.
I know it was 2005.
I drove a U-Haul and he
and my mother and grandmother
ran late to the Kingdom Hall.
As I left, I took a picture of them,
and then of a large dog
leashed in the bed of a pickup.
Maybe a phone call but email
is how I know now that he fell
eleven times in the last seven days,
that one day, maybe soon,
he will fall and not get up again.
System Failures
My father can still balance a checkbook,
will do it five times in a row if my mother
lets him. He can trace the Kings of Israel
from Saul to Zedekiah, explain
the numerology of the End Times
from Daniel to Revelation and back again,
can sing every song Ray Price recorded.
He doesn’t know my sister visited last week,
that I moved to Iowa,
that we haven’t talked since 2005.
If I could, I would spend every day
cleaning the plaque off his nerve endings,
strip them like speaker wire,
re-solder the connections between processor
and hard drive, upgrade his RAM,
all so he could tell me he disapproves
of what I’ve done with my life
and mean it, so he could
walk me through my sinful path,
show where he thinks it leads.
Sonnet for Potential Parenthood
I notice children more now that we are
trying to have one (maybe two)
of our own. I look at price tags more,
at fashion trends. I worry about the flu
and vaccination boosters: whooping cough
is on the rise again in Washington.
My hearing’s more acute. I find it tough
to concentrate (every bang’s a gun
in my panicked imagination) but
we’re trying anyway, employing special-
ists to make our gametes meet (to rut?)
combine, divide and grow (a blastocyst
is what we’re after, and then an embryo
or two and maybe a baby). Ready? Let’s go.
Author Biography
Brian Spears is the poetry editor of The Rumpus and the author of A Witness in Exile (Louisiana Literature Press 2011). He currently teaches at Drake University and sells beer and wine at the Gateway Market in Des Moines under the nickname “The Mighty Malt Master.”