by Nick Gisburne
She takes her opportunity, her chance,
To meet the ship of strangers passing through.
They swear to show her soul the vast expanse,
The universe, as one of them, the crew.
Their captain is a copy of a child.
He offers her a pale and perfect hand,
And she, by life’s relentless grind defiled,
Allows her thoughts to open, breathe, expand.
A pulse, a presence, something very wrong.
The touch of it electrifies her spine.
The promise she will join them, and belong,
Is broken by the boy she thought benign.
As he, the clone, the avatar, the bait,
Consumes her, she perceives his greed, too late.
