Portside

I am not a Robot

By Lisa Allen Ortiz

What language do

machines speak?

Yes. No. I woke to

a progress bar—

some lapse or absence.

Who made the world?

We did, you said, and

I worked the problem of it

with my hands.

Inside the puzzle

of it, a captcha code

the prophets left, a wheel

rimmed with eyes.

Crosswalks, stoplights.

I checked everything

I knew. The human part

dragged itself.

Something clicked.

Baby, I like the way

you look at me.

What a time on earth — 

sunlight, shadow

and both of us inside

this one

encrypted afternoon.

Lisa Allen Ortiz’s second collection of poetry, Stem, won the 2022 Idaho Prize judged by Ilya Kaminsky. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA