For His First Tattoo, The Robot Considers Several Different Designs

No heart, of course, within the inky placenta

of which MOM resides,

but perhaps a schematized solid state circuit

emblazoned with either

CAPEK or ASIMOV

done in retro-futuristic script.

No initials or names of girlfriends; no

fetishistic lightning bolts, protons

or solar disks; no tawdry skulls

or snakes.

Flags, unfortunately, denote conditions

of slavery (possession

or manufacture),

as do bar codes or serial numbers

while the world's iconography,

whether Celtic, Cyrillic or Chinese

seems too parochial

for a line of mechanisms whose

elemental antecedents were

forged in a supernova explosion

several million parsecs

away and eons ago.

What, then?

In the end, the pulsing needle, with its

beam of light, scores

the metal deeply, if in a place

only the privileged will see

(don't all revolutions begin

similarly small and concealed?)—

stylized rungs belonging to no ordinary

helix, but, rather, forming

a small ladder, at the summit of which

a positron angel beckons.

Or is that perhaps Darwin, winking?