Before the Gander

I didn't wake up with a large pod by my bed.
On that road to Damascus, I didn't spot a UFO,
but a somehow pleasant hum fills me, as though
life weren't all that bad after all, as though dead
birds hadn't accumulated under my windows. Or
am I just imagining this interlude from these, of late,
patriotic mites scribbling on the blank slate
of my sleep, conducting their erotic wars
in my dried up snot and tears. Big and happy,
I’m a vegetable cultivated by a commander
of intergalactic tramps who records my snappy
come-backs for posterity. Before the gander
came this program shaped like a golden egg,
and monogrammed along its helix: GREG.