Fallout 3

Rubble scaled by the moonlight and me
somewhere near Rockbreaker’s Last Stand
watching a tin-can frisked by the wind
when the texture maps beneath my feet
failed and I shifted to third-person view
taking in my jerky skull and shoulders
while minutely grooved and pitted boulders
blurred and softened by that digital flaw
turned all at once to dollops of cake mix
and the unconvincing walking physics
got my stand-in skating in no time
like Wordsworth across what looked to me
like endless moonlit planes of dirty ice
until the system managed to save face

from Grun-tu-molani (Bloodaxe, 2014), © Vidyan Ravinthiran 2014, used by permission of the author and the publisher

Vidyan Ravinthiran is a poet, critic and scholar from the UK. He is known for his range of work exploring his Sri Lankan Tamil ...

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