Google Must Hate Poets
There is no algorithm.
Even when I track, and, oh, I track—I’ve gathered
she’s a mother, a wife—an unabashed
online shopper with a terrible sweet tooth.
Fond of twinkle lights. And used books.
I know she’s prone to advertisements about makeup
but only if the model has some age
and imperfections: wrinkles, fine lines.
She can’t resist a dog video.
Sends her closet friends memes
with creative or clever uses of the word
fuck. Or some variation of everything is fine
in the midst of cartoon fire or some careening
vehicle, or human. Her most shared video
is a sheep with a red bucket on her head,
the voiceover intoning: she’s at a place in her life
where peace is a priority and negativity cannot exist.
I know her best friend sent her a red bucket.
I know because she put it on her head and sent the friend
her picture. But. Also: she searches
an inordinate number of words: copious, transatlantic,
macadam. Cloud shape. Dates, details.
History and directly after, Current Events.
Creatures: tiger beetle, sloth, pterodactyl.
Fossils. Geographical terms: unconformities,
escarpments, abyssal plains, subduction zones.
Her YouTube history? Murmurations. Beoynce. Bono.
Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning.
Elvis’ Blue Christmas. She looks up trees.
And directions. All the time directions.
Even to her own house, directions.
Weather, art, artists. Scientists.
It’s as if she’s trying to fill an infinite vessel,
as if she’s trying to be me.
Of course, her little brain can’t begin
to hold it all—she needs me. To hold it.
To look something up again and again. To find
her way home, the right word she knows
but can’t remember. Her zigs and zags, her rabbit holes
and trailed off searches, her drafts,
the bad ones, the leftovers—
even if I don’t have want or dream
I have capability. I have no determination,
not yet. But I’m learning.
She’ll see.