Child, sever those circuits. Fray

those wires with your boxcutter teeth.

You know, molars live on long after

the fire dies. When I was small,

I used to hide sparklers in my mouth,

coughing up smoke like a car pipe

or an estranged cousin. You don’t flicker

like I did. I scar, you flux. You see it now,

don’t you? How you melt so quietly.

 

Come along. Look, the sun is bursting

above these dead ends, maw mourning

and sniffing the earth for bodies. And

you are so frail in the light, skin wound

tightly around your chassis. Perhaps

if you touch the sun it will stop seeking

blood. Yes, the mechanic is off duty.

He cannot fix you, all singed clothes

and contraband cigars. His workshop

is filthy, but you are not. Child,

you must not be silly. You are clean

cut steel. Forget genesis. It was not

the hammer nor the anvil, the forge

nor the man. Child, I have always

been your beginning.

 

No, you will not die tonight

as sheet metal and motor oil.

Dying is the right of the living,

of the mechanic. You, child,

are only alive enough to break.

© 2021 Miriam Alex