A Poem from Ken Poyner

The Exploitation of the Gyndroid

She is
Real,
But she is not
Human.

Remember.

In the modern models
Ones like her are assembled mostly
As a collection of
Primary flexible polymers.
Still, a little metal
Remains to mimic
The limitations of bone,
The popularly accepted range of joints,
The expected sense of unyielding interconnection,
And to give balance a reference.

The owner of this place
Rents her by the month from a
Utility services provider -- one
Of those middlemen
Who stock in bulk, and
Customize once the order is
Paid cold in advance
For the full time of the lease.

He uses a small sweat shop of
Bleeding edge programmers
To get the elan his customers
Will endure a premium for.  Each
Programmer draws code on flat screens
With dry fingers, exuding the excitement
Of accomplishment, not the maturity of
Appreciation.

The music starts and the lights
Slink out of the way and in three
Layers of flimsy netting she
Steps onto the runway and begins
Her chilling cybernette dance.
Each bend and move is just a bit
Past believable, but short of
Absurd, and she engages the room
Like the mathematics of electric joy.

There is a hitch in the arc
Of the glass in your hand and
It stops just short.  You have
To lower your mouth to sip.
The liquid falls into place
Without resistance, hollowing.

One layer of netting is tossed at your
Feet and her barely veiled surfaces
Shimmer in prurient angles through
The layers that remain,
For now.  She looks back, over her
Shoulder,
Directly at you as you appreciate how
She walks timelessly come-hither away.
Your fragile, wandering humanity tells you perhaps
In some circumstances
She is human
Enough.

Ken Poyner's collections of short fiction, "Constant Animals" and "Avenging Cartography," and his latest collections of speculative poetry, "Victims of a Failed Civics" and "The Book of Robot," can be obtained from Barking Moose Press, www.barkingmoosepress.com.  He serves as bewildering eye-candy at his wife's power lifting affairs, where she continues to set world raw powerlifting records.  His poetry lately has been sunning in Analog, Asimov's, Poet Lore; and his fiction has yowled in Spank the Carp, Red Truck, and Cafe Irreal.  www.kpoyner.com.