October 1, 1993
True North/5: It’s Easy
at the South Pole. There every direction is true North. Direction there itself the point, turning and moving —or the place where your eyes fall, if you stand waiting. Though […]
October 1, 1993
AIDS and the Poetry of Healing
Now you were tired, and yet not tired enough—Still hungry for the great world you were losing Steadily in no season of your choosing—And when at last the whole death […]
October 1, 1993
Technology and Medicine
The transformation is complete. My eyes Are microscopes and cathode X-ray tubes In one, so I can see bacteria, Your underwear, and even through to bones. My hands are hypodermic […]
October 1, 1993
Why We Care about Quarks
Because something deflected the fired electrons. Because emptiness, suddenly, seemed crowded, and The invisible, three bits of it, needed a name After ACES was rejected, that opener called Before a […]
October 1, 1993
DNA, or, the Legend of My Grandfather
A molecule that craves its own embrace Encodes a message from my ancestors: Survival means eternal life. Restored As though he were alive again, my face Seems more my grandfather’s […]
October 1, 1993
The Distant Moon
I Admitted to the hospital again. The second bout of pneumocystis back In January almost killed him; then, He’d sworn to us he’d die at home. He bakedUs cookies, which […]
October 1, 1993
The Various Reasons of Light
I It is at night that faith in light is admirable. EDMOND ROSTAND, Chantecler Because someone said, “Let’s walk,” and then the fire rose from the heart of the ice, […]
October 1, 1993
Nurse Waking
Because the dog’s barking and I am home and the mail and the blue crocus and the sleep feeling. Because the dog’s barking and I am home and waking and […]
October 1, 1993
Odex: Scenarios for a Functionoid
(described in Asimov and Frenkel, Robots) In front of his corporate banner, a bald man in a suit is bent over a control box. A small crowd has gathered. Odex […]
October 1, 1993
True North/4: Strategem-Strategem
You can measure more easily when the shadow length changes more rapidly: morning, afternoon. Take a rope. Tying yourself to your fixed stick—don’t bend it—and pulling the rope taut, walk […]
October 1, 1993
Pandora
(described in Into the Heart of the Mind by Frank Rose) The goal is to teach PANDORA to put on its raincoat if and only if both Raining and Outside. […]
October 1, 1993
R.M.I. 3
(The New York Times, March 18, 1987) “We don’t give them names because it’s not a game,” the Lieutenant said. “They run interference for us in dealing with suspects. They […]