The Ocotillo Invasion
Utah cringes as hacked Ocotillo turn carnivorous,
spitting psychoactive pollen into the atmosphere,
dusting entire subdivisions.
The victims wander,
searching eagerly for where sunlight is strongest.
A part of their backbrain
gets tickled by the sun
at an angle our old pituitary glands
have relearned to sense.
There have been reports that
the vision of pollen victims
has moved into the ultraviolet -
they wear sunglasses at raves
due to their newfound sensitivity.
In the afternoon, they wear welder’s goggles.
It is Utah,
and it is so very bright there.
The Ocotillo and the pollen victims have built walking machines
with assistance from biohackers and wild, traitorous smiths
from all over the planet.
The machines look like the ghostly outlines of trees,
the roots modded into multi-toed hooves.
Traces of rare earth magnets
have been detected inside the machines -
neodymium iron boron chief among them.
The root-hooves move with slow, deliberate rhythm,
as if the forest of four-bar linkages
were straining against the Earth’s flux.
The wind moves them.
The earth keeps them on the ground
The ghost trees want to go someplace to spawn,
like the polyps of a man-o-war.
Once there, they will undergo another phase change.
That is what is whispered
by the victims of the pollen.
Supercomputers cobbled together from Xboxes
have modeled the movements of the motile plants
based on observations from toy helicopters
fitted with drugstore digital cameras.
Salt Lake City will be overrun by next year’s end,
the state in two.
The desert won’t stop them.
That’s home turf,
and they are learning to dig canals.
Utah will succumb to the hacked desert.
Montezuma quail are suspected of conspiracy
to sabotage of the dominion of man.
Lord knows they have motive,
and traitors to the species are lending them weapons.
Copyright © Bryant Ohara | Year Posted 2015
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