A 30 million page backup disc of humanity’s collected knowledge is going
to the moon,
a safe deposit box, a treasure chest
data files compressed into 21 thin layers.
It contains all of our knowledge
that is housed on Wikipedia.
Listen I love a library but
I love this world in analogue.
Give me pages and their faults,
pyrophoric, moldering.
Is it stored in binary or in html? A call number for the time
I plunged my arms into the depths of an indigo vat
lizard brain response to the moment a thing you care for falls away,
exposed to air & anaerobic, my fingers tinctured first
the color of a California hillside
distending into summer then
the color of Mineral Lake into which I hurdled
evenings after dinner sublimating to the deepest blue;
to which article do I append
the eulogy delivered at the funeral of a woman who lived
allergy-eyed on a riding lawnmower
full speed.
When they arrive
what they will find
is beauty,
holographic diffracted glow,
one DVD.
Bio: Jill Bergantz Carley is a poet with Pushcart nominations and her first collection, ANIMAL VEGETABLE MINERAL, forthcoming from UnCollected Press in 2020. She’s the recipient of fellowships from The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Sundress Publications, and Mineral School. Her recent work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Tupelo Press, ENTROPY, Collective Unrest, trampset magazine, Back Patio Press, and elsewhere. She tweets @jillbergantz— say hi!