A HEAVY CHOICE FOR LIGHT READING

by James King

Some girl walked past me with a book
in a hurry, blur of black hoodie,
and I could scope out the last half
of the title riveted into its spine:
“KILLER ROBOTS” in all caps,
and I thought that if the first half was
“How to Build ____” then that was indeed
very bad, especially frightening, and
especially doable, given the abundance
of metal that is still left in the earth even after
humanity’s continual mechanical-shovel gutting
of dusty grey hills full of buried treasure
and all the other war machines trundling
turtle-like across cracked roads in the Ukraine.
But I guess you could make the argument that
you could set the Killer Robots to kill the older
war machines with their dark 50-caliber snouts
spouting flame at ruined buildings, and when the Killer Robots
were done killing the killers they could come home
to their tired inventor slumped over her desk,
and ask her how her day was and she would say
oh, you know, it was killer, pardon the pun.
But they would understand because their days
were the same, and they would put her to bed
with soft strokes of plastic bullet-tipped fingers
down her tired face, which I think might be nice.
I think I could sleep a little better if I knew
that the robot saviors did their jobs,
if I had one to tuck me in, turn out the light,
close the book.

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James King is the recipient of the 2020 Academy of American Poets Prize from Dartmouth College. His work has appeared in the Stonefence Review, ONLYCHILD Magazine, and The Foundationalist. He lives in New Hampshire with his family and two dogs.