Ode to the Flux Capacitor Heart for Michael J. Fox by Stefano Donno

 Ode to the Flux Capacitor Heart

In the glitch of neurons, where time bends

not backward to hoverboards or '80s neon,

but forward through the tremor, the unscripted reel—

Michael, you pilot the DeLorean of days,

engine humming with carbidopa hum,

a flux capacitor forged from Canadian grit

and Hollywood's flickering arc.

Your hands, once steady on the sitcom stage,

now dance their own improv, a Parkinson's polka,

yet you laugh, the punchline landing like a proton torpedo:

"Lucky man," you quip, memoir pages turning

in the wind of a billion-dollar quest,

foundation stones laid against the tide of cells

that forget their lines.

Public eye sees the icon, Marty McFly eternal,

but deeper, the activist alchemist, turning stem cells

into gold for the afflicted, a quiet revolution

in lab coats and Senate halls. Resilient fox,

you outfox the foxing of fate, family your anchor—

Tracy's gaze a steady North Star, children orbiting

like planets in your personal cosmos.

In 2026's dawn, with AI mapping the brain's wild rivers,

you return: voice in animated fur, guest in shrinking rooms,

a book called Future Boy—not fiction, but testament.

We read you in fragments, contemporary verse unbound,

where meter stutters like symptoms, then surges free,

echoing the hybrid pulse of now: eco-aware, identity-forged,

your story a found form, recipe for hope—

mix humor, advocacy, one part denial shaken off,

serve with unwavering light.

Tremor Sonata: A Hybrid Dispatch

From the set of Spin City, 1998 dispatch: "The diagnosis hit like a plot twist no one saw coming—early-onset, they said, as if age could gatekeep chaos." But you spun it, Mike Flaherty's charm masking the inner quake. Public persona: the eternal optimist, quipping through quivers, Emmy in one hand, foundation blueprint in the other.

Interlude in free verse:

Shaking hands sign bills for stem cells,

a political cameo in '06, McCaskill's ad—

your voice, steady as script,

cuts through partisan fog.

Now, 2025's Future Boy:

pages ripple with journeys

through space-time of self,

Parkinson's as wormhole,

emerging stronger, sober since '92.

Prose break: In 2026, the Foundation announces IQ + You events—Henderson, St. Louis, Dallas, D.C.—empowering families, connecting dots of data with AI's precision eye. You've raised billions, turned personal storm into communal shelter. Wife Tracy, four kids: your constellation against isolation.

Lyrical coda:

Resilient fox, foxing the decline,

with Coldplay's stage in '24, guitar strings vibrating

sympathy with your own.

Glitch becomes grace,

tremor a rhythm experimental—

not iambic, but alive, pulsing,

inviting us to dance the unknown measure.

Fractured Futures: An Ecopoetic Mapping

Neuron forests thinning,

a clear-cut in the brain's wildwood—

dopamine drought, 1991's quiet apocalypse.

Yet you, Michael, reforest with resolve,

foundation roots delving deep,

$2 billion by 2026, blooming therapies:

ND0612's pump, ultrasound's bilateral blade,

AI scouts spotting symptoms' stealth advance.

Fragment: Public fox, sly smile intact,

Back to the Future's boy-man,

now elder statesman of endurance.

Political undercurrents: Presidential Medal, 2025 gleam,

Hersholt Humanitarian, 2022's nod to the fighter

who lobbies not for lines, but lives.

Your image: candor wrapped in comedy,

memoirs like maps—Lucky, Always Looking Up,

No Time Like the Future—charting denial's swamp

to sobriety's shore.

Micro-burst:

Tremor

as tide—

rise, recede,

reshape the coast

of daily motion.

Hybrid echo: In Shrinking's return, voice in Zootopia 2,

you loop back, time-traveler true,

family your ecosystem—Tracy's soil, children's canopy.

Against aging's entropy, political instability's gale,

you stand, resilient hybrid: actor-activist,

poem in motion, where verse frees itself

from rigid form, pulses with the now's raw beat