‘Adding more data points causes the fitted function to adapt itself to the shape of the true function, and uncertainty decreases.’
A O’Hagan (‘Bayesian analysis of computer code outputs: A Tutorial’)

The place comes in a kit like a shelf company.
The usual mean runs through the dimensions:
maybe a perch for some exotic bird.
Is the atmosphere even breathable?
At the moment it smells of nothing.

I needed to make the space homely.
I set the dials, kept the light levels low
fed in the best guess like a pacemaker wire.
For now the prior falls like a dust sheet
over other possibilities. You can overthink it.

But there have to be rules,
or you get too far away from everything you’ve ever known.
It’s all hearsay, what kind of beast this box will house
though we’ve planned for weird local behaviour
in the clutter of the higher dimensions.

You could be a snake, pretending to sleep
cool reptilian sleep along the given line.
We bide our time, hoping you’re smooth -
spikes or fur, and the whole zoo might have to be chucked.

It’s infinite in here, so I can only see a little way
through the smoked glass
to the pitifully few bits of spoor.
I might have made too many assumptions.
You flinch and shapeshift with what’s not ruled out.

After a week I can smell the rankness in the run-off
but you’re still bubble-wrapped -
a mystery parcel bulging between bits of tape.
Little balloon animal, only at the joints do you crystallise
into pivot, articulation, arthritis.

Are you breathing, or is that just thin air, huffing
at a piercable skin of what’s possible?
When you made your move I was watching.
I hadn’t predicted the damage in the endless corners
or the all-heaven-breaks-loose uncertainty deflating
then falling from your bones,
like dandruff, or scattered light.

© Judy Brown 2019