Day 20

 Day 20

The history (On this Day website) 

On This Day,

it's useful to point out

that an anniversary is purely arbitrary,

the mean point of our journey around the sun,

and means nothing 

but this chance meeting.

The web page collects and aggregates,

but tells us nothing but a date;

a faint line between Powell and Columbine.

The isolation of M and Madame Curie,

memory as an isotope,

decaying in recollection.

Will the Internet ever let us forget

the algorithm, holding onto any pattern

by its fingernails?

In the data ocean, Deepwater-

the rig refining histories

comes loose from moorings, spills.