WE GET EMAILS

Kass writes (and allows me a day off) "As to robot/human love, thought you might enjoy this angle on it by one of my favorite poets, William Dickey"

ANDROIDS

Androids

are not different in appearance

from you and me

except they are more beautiful.

Male-type androids are muscular,

have smooth chests

and incredible apparatus;

the female-typeare, as we say, pneumatic,

and have been taught everything about it

there is to know.

You have been to bedwith an android, probably thinking

“Jesus, did I luck out!”

The androidis not really thinking about you at all.

It is gathering informationfor the data bank.

As you fall back,exhausted, unsuspicious,

the android will kiss your forehead.

It will murmur “Thank you.”

And then it will leave.

It is a characteristic of androids

not to stay on till morning.

And even if you were suspicious

it would do you little good.

The only way to identify the androidis to look inside its navel

where it is stampedwith its country of manufacture.

That is why it leaves while you are exhausted.

It is important to it

not to let you get that close.

The secret word is Lubricant