Alternative output
is when bombs hit earth
and open up and flowers
cover all.

Or, alternatively,
when olive trees come
to full ripeness in the time
it would have taken to butcher
children’s bodies
and fling the parts widely across hills
where ancient groves once grew.

Alternative output
of this stale algorithm
might resemble a culture
that has forgotten how to fear
any other and has resisted
turning into fodder by bending
from the waist
to see common ground beneath them
and then rising to look into
the other’s eyes
with a steady gaze.

Alternative output
is not falling over for death
but remaining standing
long enough for
the killers and their children to notice
they aren’t extinct and have not toppled
into their history books. 
Staying alive, tossing bombs
onto their streets that will bloom
like prairie, spread like salmon,
turn rubble and the still-standing dead
into sacred space filled with acolytes
of whatever will come
after you have gone.