to imitate · to copy · to emulate · to mimic · model

Parrots imitate human speech.

It's Lulu Island, 3 August 2025. After supper—green figs tender with sunlight, sweet vinegar from yesterday’s pickled jar, and reheated Alfredo—I sat on the balcony and watched the conifer. Stillness below, a street without cars, without haste. My lime water, iced, caught the light. Michael, the Franco-Danish ufologist, has been in my conversations lately. We speak of inner things: the trance of smart devices, the mind’s eye dwindling. He says cafés aren’t cafés anymore. People forget how to look, how to linger. I tell him of Arthur in Japan—how he'd stare into blank walls like a monk gazing at emptiness. Lately I ask machines to speak like poets, and they do. They mimic Elizabethan verses and the old wistful lilt of Tagalog ballads. I pick blackberries along the path to Tim Hortons. "¡Moras!" I shout like a child. My friend Mora, whose blood flows with Andes mist, would smile. Today, I bought lemons. I meant limes, but lemons are all right. / blackberry morning— / a fig's ghost on my fingers / and the street still sleeps