Terminal Crash Poem by Gloria Kim

My computer died today
after eight years of work and play.
Much of me was saved in RAM -
all of it was lost today.

Tomorrow I bring home a used one,
one, though stripped, with memory bare,
will bear as yet the imprint of
a stranger's chosen ways.

By happenstance
The software is the same -
a language I have come to know
from years of conversation.

I must remember:
There will be nothing there.
No databases keyed and combed
no photographs I favored,
no thoughts I saved nor pictures drew
and subsequently savored.

There will be nothing there,
Though paths will feel familiar—
doors and hallways all well-known
will lead me not to the welcome warm
of all the self-made works and words
inspirited by me alone.

There will be nothing there.
Tomorrow's paths will open into
only empty space.
Clipped lacunae
where every shadow trace of
human occupation will be gone.

There will be nothing there
until the conversation,
left hard and soft in haste,
begins again.