Humanoid

I was cutlery left out in the rain, rusty
by morning, a side-slipping fiddlestick
desperate for music, starved for company.

You were a knockoff  BOGOF version
of a briny punk with a commitment phobia
permanently out of your habitat and time zone.

We were observable repairs, reorganised
schedules looking for a fix, butchered
invoices and recriminations.

They were observing aliens, measuring
intonation and feedback loops. And we
let them cut into us because we felt

we owed them for letting us play ‘being
human’. And we were wild and free
as they loaded us into the future machines.

Hannah Linden won Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2021, Highly Commended Wales Poetry Award 2021 & 2nd prize Leeds Peace Poetry Prize 2024. Her debut pamphlet, The Beautiful Open Sky (V. Press), shortlisted for Saboteur Award 2023. BlueSky: @hannahl1n.bsky.social