Did I deserve what I received? As much 

as baby deserves her bottle (or is 

admission an absolution?): Surely;

but did I deserve to deserve it? Well,

choice being the merely proportionate 

illusion of choice; maybe. In practice 

you’ve already won or lost; in practice 

you’re nothing but a voice in your own ear

with all the volition of a raindrop: 

Atoms, set in motion, set in motion

atoms; retraceable, predictable

surely someday soon, or surely never,

by supercomputers so prescient as

to meet most definitions of a god.