Published in Poet’s Choice
Don’t you know that I’m a ghost
in the machine? Surely you can feel
those headstone keys cling
to their metallic soil just a second
too long when you push them down,
and don’t you think that the pixels
of my name on your screen are just a little darker,
a little bolder than anything that is written
below them? Blue screens of code spitting
those three words in white, a box of black
stars blocking you from entering your computer.
No, you did not mistype; I do it just so you spell
me out again. I do it so that when you press
those clicking seeds down into the earth,
my muddied hand sprouts up, fingers
outstretched, cold, and aching for the cadence
of your pitter-patter pulse. This isn’t calculated,
programmed, or expected. There are no errors
in the software, so if you want to define me
as a poltergeist, I hope that you would be the one
to exorcize me, and that your address to me
would be the final words that I understand.
Jaden Fong 