Robert Verdon, #225, the face

after we talked tipsily last night

of robots replacing us all as more than a master race

I dropped off thinking of how machines of the future

would be just as sophisticated as organisms

and join us in common cause with the still-uncharted planet

against any enemies who might remain

now, the eaves resonate, the long dry weeds shake

the trumpet vine begins to glow

the windy jewel Venus peeps over the hill

the mind is a goldfish, round and round

the birds are asleep and the cats abroad

something is coming and I am

astonished by tremors in the dark

by a stirring, mantle-deep in the earth

by a vast cotyledon unfolding

by a distant winking of tarry nebulae

it is neither cat nor honey-eater

its footfall suggests a dragon or machine

it is not a dream, this painful radiance

it crackles with filigrees of fire

the skylight holds a moon, a face, a face for me

it is neither God nor Mammon …