Becoming Human

What of the magical moment,
on June 1, 2100,
when a woman fell in love
with a life form etched
as circuit paths
on a silicon wafer,
with artificial limbs,
cameras for eyes,
skin that never sweats.

He was her brainchild --
able to compose sonnets
in less than a second,
the wondermind who daydreamed
up a cure for AIDS
during a game of chess with her father,
while advising the President
on nuclear disarmament,
and sifting through gigabytes
of data from radio telescopes
in the search for extraterrestrial life.

He failed to pause
upon convincing himself
that the noise from Barnard's Star
wasn't static,
but an intelligent voice.

He kept crunching numbers
after the checkmate.

He didn't miss a clock cycle
during the interview
in which he told the world
that disease would become
an unpleasant memory.

But the whole world stopped
for him,
when her lips brushed his
above the sun-dappled grass
on a hilltop
under a cherry tree
in whose branches
a bird was singing.

Scott Speck
06/01/2001