Say we do this again say we know it best with our eyes
closed, oiled fingertips the thing we want is machine
is mechanized tongue; in these words, in their primary shape
I betray the evergreens; nothing can stop the industry of
shame, slick with design and no less deadly to the soul
that wanders in nothing but burlap singing to the trees;
I was once this soul and now I want to be tied to a bed;
who best to serve me: man, woman, machine
control is every gear spun out of the minerals of the earth
that have forgotten their time underground I am
on a train taking me to a dull city; skyscrapers feign
sky with glass how else to reflect what was good of you
in me I must forgive this poem every poem each one
betraying you to me in parts and not the whole, elegant
machine.
Hannah Larrabee
Hannah Larrabee’s Wonder Tissue won the Airlie Press Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for a Massachusetts Book Award. She has chapbooks published by Seven Kitchens Press and Nixes Mate. Hannah has written poetry for the James Webb Space Telescope program at NASA, and she'll be sailing around Svalbard in the Arctic Circle with artists and scientists in October. www.hannahlarrabee.com
