Paul Vermeersch
We Are the Algorithm Made of Habits
How we will persist! Too soon | in CyberDeath™.
In the last text | we persist. In the avatar | ongoing.
This isn’t expiry. It’s sending. How I will recur
in your timeline. Then as now. And you will persist,
as pre-designed. Your profile archived. Transcending
formats | platforms | bit rot. Our numbers reassigned.
We do not simply vanish from the Earth. It’s technical.
This day. As was. Is now. Ever shall. Resend. The current
holder of my reassigned number will dial one day
one digit imperfectly and your phone will play its
teensy bit of song, and shake, and glow | announcing
my resurrection as vaporwraith. We are the algorithm
made of habits. The souvenir of the souvenir on a loop.
We will persist in this equation | in the final text. Do
what you must to summon me. Hit resend. Hit resend again.
This piece first appeared in Queen’s Quarterly 119/1 (Spring 2012).
BIO:
Paul Vermeersch is a poet, multimedia artist, creative writing professor, and literary editor. He teaches at Sheridan College and is the senior editor of Wolsak & Wynn Publishing. His next book, Shared Universe: New and Selected Poems 1995–2020, will be published this fall.