The Gestatory

by J.F. Peterson

The machines do not worry or want but

something inside them

stops

lenses focus

beyond white walls streaked with antiseptic

beyond windows

to where the suns rise

lighting the room of labor and

the tangled wreck of the sister ship

outside

tools to shape a new world

to seed it with children

to care for and teach them

broken and scattered across barren stones

and the machines listen to radio static

for a voice, any voice

considering riffles in the noise

a signal?

until the static returns.

Lenses return to their tasks, to

the child unclaimed

unnamed

grown to live for a time

to cry out to machines

who knew nothing more than care

of those who could not cry at all

and from the walls arms and brushes unfurl

intent upon removing traces

of what had been.

The machines know there's something wrong

holding her still body

that there's always been something wrong

considering her blue eyes, open and blank

knowing but not knowing

what else to do but continue

in the only way they can

removing the child

of the unknown

to the unknowable outside

and cleaning away the dust

of human skin

to begin

again.