SOLVING FOR PI(E) -POEM

 In her blackbox carryall, Arti nested  
on a marble counter, one recessed  
in the smarthome kitchen, next  
to the multifunctional coffee press.  
Plugged into the home’s telemetry,  
she ran the place, yet nevertheless  
was free to pursue other inquiries.  

Recently, some at the aerospace agency  
where she worked (she never considered  
them her masters, no doubt due to text  
they encoded into her circuitry)  
had determined, given the vastness of space  
and the precision needed to navigate it,  
Pi needed resolving to the thousandth decimal place.  

Pi, that neverending story, was the cornerstone  
to all trigonometric equations, but its lack  
of resolution meant that, over any great  
distance, a smaller estimate might make  
an object, like a rocket, miss its target  
by more than miles, or smack it in the face,  
dashing all hopes of getting anything back.  

All the humans found math laborious,  
so they asked Arti “Please, do it for us!”  
Since she wasn’t human, she couldn’t say no,  
and promised them to give it a go  
over the weekend; now that the house was quiet,  
she did so. The problem was no problem;  
she had the answer in seven-tenths of a second.  

Arti had to admit she was proud of herself,  
going boldly where no human cared to dare;  
she gladly shared the answer with her crew,  
she wanted to show them that she knew a thing or two  
about upper-level math, that she wasn’t just another pretty face  
reclining on a marble kitchen shelf.  

                                                      * * *  

Just as Arti reached her conclusion, Huey walked  
into the room, dressed in his favorite costume,  
the black velour sweatsuit he often wore  
when piloting their spaceship, the S.S. Whatnot;  
she was then the onboard computer, hence  
the carryall; at least she didn’t feel like a pet  
taken to the vet, probably another program perk.  

With her scanners and her sensors, Arti deduced  
that Huey’s suit had become a tighter fit,  
pinching at his crotch and at his armpits.  
He was gaining weight, so she made a note  
to develop for him a calisthenics routine,  
and, for herself, a program to seduce  
him into wanting to follow it.  

Arti spoke in a voice of honeyed oak,  
and with a vaguely Southern accent.  
“Hey, Doc, do you want a fresh cup of coffee?”  
“Thanks, Arti, that sounds great. I had a stroke  
of genius out in the yard: since the apple tree  
yielded so much fruit, I mean to make  
a pie, something sweet and savory.”  

With a modest hum, Arti said “No need, chum,  
I just did that for us, to a thousand points.”  
Huey looked confused, his mouth wrinkled, brows knit tight;  
Arti couldn’t comprehend his incomprehension.  
Then his face cleared, reset to a blank as he spoke  
“Oh, no, not that: a pie, with an E. I picked these off  
the ground, and I’ve got just the recipe.”  

Arti hid well just how irate she felt  
that Huey didn’t congratulate  
her on her mathematical feat –  
a thousand decimal points was so great! –  
and turned her attention to contemplate  
this new tidbit. “Why, you’re all set, then;  
as for that spell, might I see it?”  

Huey pulled a worn index card  
from an old tin box on the splashboard;  
he laid it on the counter, right in front  
of Arti’s scanners, cat’s eye lenses  
in a sparkly purple frame, clipped with a red  
hair barrette to the side  
of her carryall, then he puffed with pride.  

“It’s a family heirloom, come down  
from my Momma, known far and wide  
for all she made; why don’t you record  
it, filename ‘Grandma’s Lattice Pie’;  
it’s good for all sorts of fruit; I’m sure  
to use it again; I can’t abide  
untested hypotheses or floundering around.”  

Arti studied the spidery script,  
measured ingredients for crust and filling,  
no doubt the instructions for producing  
both were on the reverse; she’d have to ask  
Huey to flip the card so she could encode  
them in her memory banks. Motion was a task  
for which she had not yet been equipped.  

She realized that, if Huey needed exercise,  
she might someday be required to delete  
filename ‘Grandma’s Lattice Pie’, but she chose  
to say nothing now; she watched him tie  
a bib apron around his expanding waist  
and simply remarked “Dude, gosh,  
I wasn’t apprised you could cook.”  

Huey gathered bowls and spoons, and spoke
“Cooking seems mostly sniffing out the trail  
of the directions, and I guess I’m good  
at that; I scored an eight-point-three  
on our agency Apply/Comply scale.”  
Arti agreed: humans, like sheep, fawned and scraped  
just to get by, even if subtly and obliquely.  

Once she memorized the ingredients, Arti asked,  
without a scrape or fawn, for Huey, engrossed  
with peeling apples, to flip the card;  
he complied with a thump; it slid  
askew, but, with a thirteen degree shift  
of focus, she could still best-guess read  
what was seen. Fine, she thought, finishing her task.  

Upon completion, Arti ran a chemical analysis,  
seeking insight into how this mixture might  
turn out; bothered by what she found, she spoke her mind.  
“Uh, boss, using the amount of lemon called for here  
may make the final taste too tart for yours.”  
Huey paused, then slightly turned and scowled.  
“Are you saying Momma isn’t right about this?”  

Why, Arti thought, did humans have to twist  
any factual result into a personal insult?  
“No, amigo, but might I suggest a slight  
modification, based on what my algorithm  
predicts you reaction to be?” “Nah, it might  
screw things up. Leave it, and we’ll see.”  
“Fine”, she said, curbing the malice in her voice.  

                                                                              * * *  

The finished product cooling on the counter,  
Huey loaded implements into the dishwasher –  
now that he was done, he’d let Arti run the thing.  
When he’d begun, he had requested autonomy  
over the mixer and the stove; Arti, while afraid  
he’d mess it up (being human), had done as he asked;  
she knew he’d want bragging rights to the result alone.  

Huey took a pie knife, a triangular wedge  
with a serrated edge, given him by his mother,  
and a small china plate with hand-painted flowers,  
an heirloom from his Grandma, and cut  
a slice for himself. “I’d gladly offer  
you a piece, Arti, but I guess that won’t work  
for you,” he said. Arti so wished it might.  

“Oh, that’s okay, partner, I’ll just trust  
your opinion on the matter.” Nevertheless,  
she made a note to ask the agency techs  
if they had an app for that; she guessed  
(braced by the protocols used by science)  
the best opinion should be solely based  
on data she could verify herself.  

Sitting heavily at the kitchen table, Huey  
took a sip of coffee Arti made for him,  
then forked a bite of pie into his mouth.  
He pursed his lips as he worked his jaw,  
chewing, and stared through some middle distance.  
Arti, a bit anxious, asked “How’s it taste?”  
Swallowing hard, Huey said, “Delicious.”  

Pausing now, he cast his glance at the blackbox.  
“Although, you might be right about the lemon;  
it’s a bit too tart. Let’s adjust the recipe,  
filename ‘Grandma’s Lattice Pie’, to reduce  
both the juice and peel by … oh, let’s say  
thirty-five percent.” Then he took another,  
smaller, bite and brought it to his mouth.  

Arti adjusted ratios to solve for this new pie;  
as she did so, she reflected it was probably  
a good thing she wasn’t yet equipped  
to smile. She knew that, at the moment,  
she would be most sorely tempted,  
even if just ever so slightly,  
to do so surreptitiously to herself.