Two computer poems

The Web It would have to be the world-wide web, wouldn't it? I mean since - say nuclear fission or the genome thing. But you wouldn't call it hubris, would you? We're not deconstructing The Mystery here - it's just information out there and ego. Still, we haven't ever known, have we - if it's a Faustian deal we've got happening? In the reconciliation of nuclear medicine and nuclear arsenals who pays? Maybe, after all, it's just more baggage, preventing our passage on the narrow way. But The Web seems so helpful - and it's about how we use it, isn't it? I mean something like the cyber-torch of Shi Tao or literacy in the jungle - there's no question, is there? But then, what of equity of access? What of the dark under-side? And, you know, what if we're the fly? – Michelle O'Connor Access Denied I don't know what our computer is humming about. Since he's gone, it seems to have its own agenda. Strange, it does not blink as much, And it no longer warms to my touch. It would be silly, of course, to ask it whether It's too soon to remove a dead person From my email list Or if his many folders preserve His secret tryst. I have tried, night after night, to unzip His memories. Only the computer is his Confidant. Stubborn, it lets no one Know all snippets of his life. Not me, Not even me, his wife. My faith is strong, yet I want to prove There's nothing in those folders That I disapprove: no stranger's pictures, No surprising bills. I want to know: No one else bit his shoulders. No one but I sucked his toes. Who knows He was not someone else's hero? Who knows what ones and zeroes Can add up to? This humming echoes my mourning. Maybe the computer is mourning too. But it is closer to him now, While my access is denied. – Tammy Ho

Michelle O'Connor is a retired school principal who teaches English in South-Western Sydney.