Starting Over

Reset: the pill

Against rough age,

Rich in mutations,

Leathered with scars,

Big as December,

Thick as marble

And heavy as the Moon—

Control-Alt-Delete!

January, the size of a dot,

A perfect functional kernel.

The rest of RAM is zero:

Bare plowed land

For seedling March,

For August’s hot corn.

Everyone grows from a dot.

Everything boots from a bit.

Even the repulsive dodo

Never lays her egg:

Clogging the shaft,

It grows unchecked

Till it pops her liver—

The newborn bird,

Flightless and alone,

Lunches on her mother’s rot.