Smoke And Mirrors

VII.

The corners of my eyes catch hasty bloodless motion-

a mouse?

Well, certainly a peripheral of some kind.

It's bedtime. I feed the pigeons,

then undress.

Contemplate downloading a succubus from a board,

maybe just call up a sidekick

(there's public-domain stuff, bawds and bauds,

shareware, no need to pay a fortune,

even copy-protected stuff can be copied, passed about,

everything has a price, any of us).

Dryware, wetware, hardware, software,

blackware, darkware,

nightware, nightmare…

The modem sits inviting beside the phone,

red eyes.

I let it rest-

you can't trust anybody these days.

You download, hell, you don't know where what came from anymore,

who had it last.

Well, aren't you? Aren't you scared of viruses?

Even the better protected files corrupt,

and the best protected corrupt absolutely.

In the kitchen I hear the pigeons billing and queuing,

dreaming of left-handed knives,

of athanors and mirrors.

Pigeon blood stains the floor of my study.

Alone, I sleep. And all alone I dream