Your Robot Girl

you theorize you have enough parts to build the robot: trashed mannequins: doll parts: discarded hydraulic pumps: servos and gears: gyroscopes and motors: you dream of a positronic brain: but you can’t wait for someone to believe in it: sidewalk ants may have to do: the hive mind: enough workers to move the parts and push the buttons: you train them: the simplest eye-blink and a finger twitches to begin: she watches that butterfly: the hunger of the masses behind each eye: you will not waste her talents on domestic monotony: you teach her to harness her hunger into writing: hoping only that she will acknowledge you: as a character in one of her novels