The train slides toward the hill-concealed horizon,

a mammoth serpent winding through the tall grass,

its strange steel-skeletal cars stacked with stranger cargo,

men and women, naked as newborns, crisscrossed eight high

in neat columns, interlocking puzzle towers of flesh.

Car thrown into park, I step out, squint down, but I'm

too far yet to tell whether I'm staring at slick synthetics

or true skin; they're perfect: trim and muscular, no

birthmarks to see, no moles, a eugenicist's wet dream;

yet sexless, static, faces blank as brain death,

a promenade of empty shells, automatons,

an android shipment, enough to fill a city, etch

personalities, watch a culture come to life. I wonder

what doctrines, what dogma, what commands

are waiting to be written on their minds?

A rich demagogue's androgynous harem, perhaps,

swarming their master like bees on their queen?

Or an instant cult, ready-made worshipers,

undying faithful to light torches in the catacombs?

Impervious soldiers, trained with a download,

storming distant deserts or jungle against others

of their own kind, or even others of mine?

Underwater miners or void-bound farmers

unafflicted by a need to breathe, raising air-filled

domes to make more space for their makers?

Pitiful, beautiful slaves, bound

for existence (hardly a life)

without choice; no one would want

to be one of you, no; but then why

do I feel such envy?