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# "Okay, Cupid" by Spencer Short
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/okay-cupid-by-spencer-short/
- Published: 2013-11-08T02:00:08.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:44:52.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Spencer Short for the latest in a monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Spencer Short
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:59 (2012, 2013, part 2)

*Our poetry editor,* [*Joe Pan*](http://joepan.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*, has selected a poem by Spencer Short for the latest in a* [*monthly series*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) *that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.*

\* \* \*

![lawrenceweiner_poetry](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/11/lawrenceweiner_poetry.jpg)

Lawrence Weiner, “Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky” (2011) (image via Artspace)

## Okay, Cupid

Like countless others in our virtual age, I’ve called  
on the algorithmic genius of unknown programmers  
to crack the cryptograph of my needs \[my wants?\] and find me  
what, exactly? Love. Sex. “To know both, keeping the difference  
visible, is the subterfuge called eros.” Or not. Though  
subterfuge is forgiven, perhaps, in the cheerful face  
of the form’s demands: “What are you doing with your life?”

it grins. Compression is key. But who doesn’t hem or haw,  
begrudge a quiet *not enough* as half-formed *in camera*  
rumbling turns to rummage? My “match” will \[a promise\]  
find me,  
and they provide a flowchart “to my heart” as evidence.  
Yet I’m no bargain. To comprehend, follow the arrows  
that never arrive → *cf.* Zeno → at the heart’s carapace.  
Heart’s cockles? No matter. Either way: just divide in half.

“Over a million profiles to choose from!” but what chafes  
—if we ignore that preposition stood up by syntax—  
is the false agency. Choose? One self-regarding monad  
among many, we’re knee-deep in the primordial muck  
because we *are* the primordial muck. Hunger. Repletion.  
How best to cope with the lawlessness of such large numbers?  
I adopt an Eighties workshop ethos: *show, don’t tell*

—hard-learned if at all—and sort glistening wheat from golden chaff.  
Farewell, Kute\_n\_Klever. But puns play and so does Jumpin\_Jax,  
who loves Murakami, “exotic locales,” Matt Damon,  
hates “Monday,” passive-aggression. You could glide a Buick  
between *under construction* and *under completion*  
and still never tell them apart. There’s strength in penumbras.  
I cough up “everything,” nothing, invoke the soft, slow sell.

Still, someone floats a trial balloon—we’re 87%  
matched, she notes, only 2% “enemy.” History  
suggests it’s my enemies that I keep close enough  
to kiss. \[*Cf.* Seidel, *My Tokyo*, pg. 27.\]  
Messages arrive—saw-toothed, the way a market behaves.  
But I lose interest, and then credit. Ever lecher-  
ous, I steal a peek at the swimsuit pics, a beggar-thief.

Who isn’t? Some advice. Ignore the bioluminescent  
warmth of collective need, the sense nothing is arbitrary.  
Approach 0\. Accept that sometimes nothing is enough.  
Reject the transfinite strata of anyone else’s heaven  
with gentleness. Let your wit multiply like waves.  
Divide Zeno from archer from arrow from fletcher.  
Court paradox. Don’t change. You should message me if.