“A Head for Her Times” by Martin Elster

She’d lost her head, but has a new one now.


Precisely how it happened, no one knew.


This flaxen-festooned oval-shaped machine,


whose retroflective eyes at twilight shine


like galaxies, sits nicely on her neck


and fits her ways. What’s more, it has a knack


for making her feel smart. She knows she’s blessed


to have it. With her trendy trousers bloused


over her boots, she rambles round the mall,


window-shopping, stopping for a meal


of sampler soups but, lonesome as a mole,


soon heads back home to brood about the future.


Time’s blemishing her body. The one feature


still fair — in actual fact downright bewitching —


is ever on the lookout, scanning, watching


for signs of wear below and, then, at last,


will take its leave for others who have lost


their noggins on its never-ending list.


Now, as she samples soup at the mall again,


a bozo moseys in with a laser gun.


While heads are being lost, her own stays cool,


showing her how to cripple or to kill


with a flying kick to the rogue’s unguarded belly —


a thing she’d never practiced, like ballet.


She’s wonderstruck when pondering this tool  


atop her trunk, which never fails to tell


her soma how to keep from harm. She leaves,


a woman of courage, and (for the moment) lives.

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About Martin Elster

Martin Elster, author of There’s a Dog in the Heavens!, serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and is a composer; his poetry has appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.