On Learning Ada Lovelace’s Father Was Lord Byron

Is programming not a kind of poetry?
Ones and zeros of the heart.

The language of unseen relations between things,
Lovelace once said.

If I have to send another email today, I will liquefy.
I will hold my finger down on a single key like a cat.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
A time before this.

A time of letters and anticipation.
A time of dying from wasting diseases

and yearning.
If you can’t give me poetry, can’t you give me poetical science?

And the way I graze on what I see out the window
as I work at my laptop.

The sun relieves itself and the birds take up the mantle
of brightness, noisy things.

The train blaring through the crossing across town.
As soon as I have got flying to perfection,

I have got a scheme about a steam engine.
I cracked an egg and it was empty. Air in my palm.