The Cost

a poem about robots and babies

You may not know this, but my day job is to philosophize on a robotics project at an engineering university. Five years in and I’m still surprised.

I was originally tasked with researching how to responsibly design robots for use groceries stores. Over the years, however, my work has expanded into a poetic philosophy on motherhood, food politics, care, and ecology.

My dissertation, completed this summer, is looking rather wild. The tame academic papers are now surrounded by poems, chatty footnotes, drawings, and personal essays. Finally, I feel proud of my work.

Here’s the first poem I’ve written for my dissertation. Read it, if you like, but I think it really should be listened to.

And coming soon: a poem on the differences of teaching a toddler and a robot to pick ripe tomatoes.

The Cost

A colleague comes to meet my baby. 
An intell gathering mission,
disguised in congratulations. 
His first child arrives soon. 

His eyes grow wide with wonder, 
as she wiggles in his lap. 
“We could never afford this!”
He exclaims. 

His days are devoted to
something called “motion planning”. 
Or: he's an engineer 
trying to make robots move. 
And those machines? 
Oh, god! They’re hopeless! 
They start when they should stop. 
Stop when they should start. 
To let them learn twenty-four hours a day, 
as my daughter does?
Squirming and stretching always? 
Well, the computation cost would be
too much. 

But, what of those other costs? 
The price of the love that was made
to call her down from the stars? 
What I paid to steady my breath
as I eased her earthside safely. 
The value of that beloved surrender, 
the unshirkable defeat needed
to finally push her through. 

And what of those nights I spent 
pacing in the dark, 
humming, “ommmmmmm”
to calm us both?
Perhaps, then, the robot 
is more affordable. 
At least there’s a number: 
10 000, 100 000, 100 000 x 2. 

My daughter? 
She cost me everything
and still more. 
I am irrevocably changed
and I call upon the powers of motherhood 
to weave protection around her
so that she may wiggle at will, 
twenty-four hours a day. 

He’s right. 
No one could afford this.