Not Everybody’s Bestiary (Yet)

Then came the soft animals, the snake

and octopus, slinking along. You’ve seen

the octopus as escape artist, sneaking out

of cracks and holes, hiding in a tea pot,

plotting the big adventure. Now she moves

through chemical reaction, the first soft

robot, taking to the sea. Remember

that the real thing once disassembled

her own aquarium, waiting, bemused,

in the remaining puddle, for her custodian

to come. They say it was simply curiosity.

Now imagine her robot double dismantling

at will. That which we have tried to contain,

swimming off into the deep, re-emerging



like the snake that slithers into your garden;

its trapezoidal kirigami cuts in plastic skin

keep it crawling through bursts of air.

An innocuous slinky in colorful garb,

this robot can sidewind anywhere.

Now ask why everything now harbors

a weapon in your mind—do you dread

the snake under your own bed?

Is it the real tooth and venom you fear,

or this programmed body double here?

We’re told of a fall, a fault built on flesh—

the flesh of a fruit, the flesh of a woman—

now this manmade flesh, a reptilian test

of applied knowledge. Industrial sin



co-starring the latest sensation: a running

cockroach robot, sliding through cracks

to get to you, away from you, through

your walls. Extinction now eradicated,

bought: replacements on order. Enter

“Robotanica”—the world of the wild robot—

woodpecker, dragonfly, kangaroo, child—

unborn, they can all do the job. Two by two,

battery-powered to keep the world moving,

replacing their organic prototypes. Centipedes,

spiders, ants, termites, and robobees, these

are just the beginning of the evolving nation,

as if someone has decided to revise, start over.

This time using human labor, invention.