I had planned evolving into this,
a million years from now.
Not so metallic of course
but with similar functionality.
I was counting on
a zillion-calculations-a-second brain,
a 'War and Peace' sized memory,
enough prime muscle to lift a truck,
and foot-speed to outpace
whatever it is the cheetah evolves into.
I was even anticipating
the command of flight,
the artistic sensibility
of ten thousand DaVincis,
the sexual prowess of Casanova
to the twentieth power.
I figured that whatever, whoever I was
was as good a starting place as any.
All it needed was patience and eons of time.
And now here's a machine that can do all this,
that can be propelled into my far future
with one flick of the remote.
So maybe there's no point evolving,
maybe I'll just grow old.
The last you'll hear from me,
I'll be dead as a doornail.
At least, as dead as doornails used to be.

John Grey is an Australian-born poet, playwright, and musician. He has been recently published in the South Carolina Review, Tales Of The Unanticipated, and the Texas Poetry Calendar, with work upcoming in Weird Tales and Pennsylvania English. He was a Rhysling award winner in 1998 for short poetry.