The Healing Machine

Hunger feeds the capacity
To heal. Excrescence aids the work

Of repair, entropic sump-pump
Keeping the cell afloat awhile.

But set the pump aside this time,
And let’s get back to the healing.

It seems sensible, doesn’t it,
That since keeping the fires burning

Is essential, or close enough,
To calling a process living,

That hunger would have to come first?
Seems too teleological

To assert the need for healing
Could precede the hunger fuels it.

But why would hunger just emerge?
Break two machines a little bit.

If both continue to collect
Material to burn for fuel,

Fine, that tells you precious little.
But if one machine also heals

Itself of its injuries while
The other doesn’t, one’s alive.