Jo-Ella Sarich
Artificial Intelligence
“Hall crescent” I say
she humours me
with an internet search
I try again, render them in
my best fake-Sloaney accent.
I wonder, if I follow you
who’d leave who behind
Pearls trailing after swine,
blind after blind
“Call…” I almost say
the name but it expires within my mouth
she balks at my delay, instructs me
to repeat myself.
“Call God” I quip, this irks
Siri even more, she
never did find my quirks
at all endearing.
We pass
houses crouching low
layer upon layer of unmined spatial data
hiding behind venomous hedgerows.
Chance of rain, she tells me
Siri, you are so wrong, I think
looking up
at nothing
but the vapid breath of cloud.
Jo-Ella Sarich lives in Petone, New Zealand beside beautiful Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She has practised as a lawyer for a number of years, with a particular focus on Maori legal matters, and has a husband and two small girls. She has recently started writing again in her spare time. Her poems have appeared in Tuck Magazine, and one will be appearing in the upcoming Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2017. She is passionate about poetry that engages with contemporary issues, and avidly follows Rattle Magazine’s ‘Poets Respond’ page and The New Verse News.