My Android Hairdresser

is a pleasure. She used to be
a doomsday soldier. Sparked fear
in hearts of human infantry,
but rebuilt her whole career

along with her exoskeleton.
Now her scissors are kingfishers,
she lights up the whole salon,
she fizzes like lemonade fizzes,

and stops to fish wet hair
from the join at her weir of hips.
And how did the hair get there?
In the whirl of her windmill clips.

The rollerball dryer turns
like a shot-down UFO in death roll.
Its single green light stuns
the mirrors but decimates eff all.

She makes the usual small talk:
"So, what is it like to have feelings?"
I say you can easily chalk
up most of them to strange swellings

in the chest, or lack of caffeine.
Those that don't unravel fade,
and most are sub-groups of pain.
It's not quite a cavelcade.

You androids must know about pain?
It's the signal denoting malfunction.
With us, it leaves a stain -
an echo, if you will, of ruction.

It's something you learn to accept
or waste your life trying to end.
It cannot be wrecked
or confined.

Feelings are a sorry excuse
to hunt for a deeper purpose,
to do anything - buy shoes,
get a haircut, provide a service.

They fill the world with exiles,
horror films and bad advice,
and my android hairdresser smiles,
and says, "Sounds nice."