What A Strange Machine


Always the wingless birds hang on the wall
their skin absent of feathers. Where is love?
Sleeping in the November fields of corn
or upstairs? She must be sleeping
if not for the birds my love would wake.

Lately I’ve been dreaming of spoons
the thin weight of their bodies. I hunger
for metal, the taste in my mouth.
I hunger for what the body cannot digest.



All my gods are profane, waste days like water, speak without purpose or memory. Tell me again how many times the body dies. No seven lives, only the four chamber heart. What’s a girl to invent with that? All the people I’ve ever loved were gathered in a dream, swam below like fish only to grow wings. A curved needle is a hook, a thin rope a string. Tell me again your name? I am a lie. I’ve been asleep for a very long time. My heart named me bird. My heart called me a cry. Only the fish flew away.