Lightspeed

by Kate Wakeling

“Looking in from the outside, you’d think Lightspeed had it all: He’s highly intelligent, strong, fast, and considered dashingly good-looking by Transformers standards. And if any of that mattered to him at all, he’d be golden. Sadly, Lightspeed aches down to the core of his being for something more. His heart yearns to escape the bonds of gravity and fly free (…) His dreams tend to distract him from his current function as a data processor.”

— Lightspeed (G1 Technobot), TFWiki.net

i.

<!TRANSFORMERTYPE html>

<title>Lightspeed</title>

<img src=“Lightspeed.jpeg” alt=“a certain kind of handsome everything” width=“lean” height=“daunting”>


<button>toflyohtoflytoflyto <strong>fly</strong></button>

<input type=“search”>



<p><del>It is never enough</del></p>

ii.

quick-heeled

he of the silver sinew

the fierce brain

etc.

etc.

he is:

a certain kind of handsome everything

(picture it yourself)

but the pressing thing

the rub

the nudge

the pickle

and fix

(I could go on)

is of course the flying

the yen to knockback

the clod and step

only on

air

to feel that deep freight of

nothing underfoot

and find




It is never enough

KATE WAKELING is a poet and ethnomusicologist. Her debut pamphlet, The Rainbow Faults, is published by The Rialto, and her book of children’s poetry, Moon Juice, is published by The Emma Press. Kate studied music at Cambridge University and holds a PhD in Balinese gamelan music from the School of Oriental & African Studies. She lives in Oxford with her husband and son Hamish.