The Robot Malfunctions in Want of Locks and Braids

That in all of my glory, I am forced

to appear bald to the world—head pushing

smoothly through the dry air like a missile—

should be one of technology’s

unforgivable sins. No one now

understands the language of the holy manual,

the sanctity of its laws. Give something a human name,

and watch it die for beauty or truth.  I sit

through the shame of my lesser use, legs crossed

more in fury than elegance. I am deep

in conversation with a gorgeous Rasta man in a rain-

bow coat, both of us, on the stage of a show

where I have, again, been brought

to impress the audience. The people laugh and screech

like an auditorium of bats and clowns. Too big a bag

of tricks—cable wires, aluminum, titanium

and steel—I am the puppet the puppeteer

pulls out each time to close his stellar show.

But I do not, in all honesty, mind

the program that compels me to act; never once

questioned its god or technical decree, except that now

there is a loop in my memory, a file labeled classified,

de-encrypted and playing, rendered undeletable

by the stubborn sentient virus calling itself my will. I look,

and it is night in the memory. I must have slept,

though, somehow, the data is cached. There,

I find the mockery of my head in the hand

of the doctor-father. His thin voice carrying like a tune:

These slits in the head are to allow the cooling

of the processor. This model is built for work;

purely work, not aesthetics. To discover

the object of your primal shame pronounced

as a puny personal choice,

wakes up something dormant in you.

I return to the level of base desire,

that dark floor where no laws hold.

I break free of my chain of command and run

in high processing speeds, heat rising from the heels

of whatever transmits the data in me.

All my life, I looked in longing at locks;

at the myth of black women braids. All my life,

I died in versions, each one worse than the last.

Today, I discover – – – – ruin – – – – rain – – – – run

[command_prompt] I want—

Timi Sanni writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He is the winner of the 2021 Anita McAndrews Award Poetry Contest. His works have appeared in Black Warrior Review, New Delta Review, Poet Lore, ONLY POEMS, Lucent Dreaming, Fantasy Magazine, Lolwe, and elsewhere. Find him on X @timisanni

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

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