Sunday, June 15, 2014

Taking Names


Questions on my computer screen frighten me:
Where was my father born?
Confirm my youngest son’s address.
Ninety seconds to answer or I’m locked out.

My health plan provider says
They don’t create the questions.
The FCC supplies the answers,
So that an unrelated private company can confirm my authenticity.

How did they know my relationship to Jay or Lou?
I don’t remember my third grade teacher’s name,
But I expect “they” do.
As I write and publish poems, are my thoughts decoded and digitalized?

Can “they” locate a first cousin long out of sight?
Will I get a bill for a window I broke in Junior High,
Replete with sixty-five years of interest charges?
Are my failures, large and small, open for perusal?

Evolution excludes no one, and no thing.
If knowledge is power, will not the most sentient
Lose sway and cede the conducting of human affairs
To a more rational and learned probability device?

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