Alchemy

from this series of silicon chips, copper wire, quartz relays,
and plastics extruded
from the underground seas of ancient trees
and dinosaur bones,

come electrical impulses,

shamanic magic,

allowing words to bounce from fingers on keys,
to the small blinking antenna in the corner of the living room,
just this side of the river-view window,
through a series of wires

to a cell tower dish,

and then to a satellite circling the earth
beyond the atmosphere,

then back down again
to another dish,

atop a massive data storage facility,
inside a sierra madre
compound,
on the other side of the continent,

or perhaps as close as a basement lab
at the university on the other side of town,

and then, in the blink of an eye,
a nod of the head,

pass from dish to cable to dish
and back again,

until they come to rest on another screen
become retinal impression

synapse,

inhalation,

lips just forming a smile.

Jeffrey Michael Bowen. Cyber Litmag, Contemporary poetry and literary classics from Cleveland to Infinity. Crisis Chronicles. 2014