Dr. Kinne’s Magnetic Electro Machine
It was smaller than a breadbox and warm wooded,
cherry or maple. The paper inside the lid had faded.
A handle on the outside turned two internal velvet
spools. Foam on the temple presses had rotted.
I unwound the wires, plugged keys into eyes
at either end. It moved too easy. I wondered
if my great-grandmother rested her wrist
on the countertop as she made a charge.
My uncle said that as children he and my aunt
wound each other up with shocks on the arm or neck
playing on the kitchen’s linoleum, not yet cracked.
My aunt said, I don’t remember that.
Granny had Nerves, an affliction like gaps
beneath the bluegrass, limestone mouths
that twist and sink. Unexpected.
Summerlast a fissure opened in the horse pasture,
swallowed a fence post, and belched a cloud of flies.
A bout with Nerves can turn up like arrowheads
after the fields are plowed, more abundant if it rains
but an echo of the distant strike of stone on stone.
Purging the pantry I found the machine.
I framed my face between the pestles.
The cold breath of metal, and then nothing.
No electric catch or eureka sizzle,
just the cold touch that was a comfort to her.
Employee Manual: The Sales Process
Like art, you should be friendly. Start with
something easy, like, did you know:
Salvador Dalí arrived for his speech
on the divinity of nature at the Sorbonne
in a Rolls Royce full of cauliflowers.
Everything hoarded must go, but not be wasted.
Ten hours of candles and audiobooks; five gels
for 390 showers; thirteen pots of lotion for 22
square feet of skin; shelves, stacks, thick spines.
I want it all on me, running the rain-slick streets
of my gray lobes, down the drain, or evaporated.
Transfigured into something I can eat, or spend again.
These dwindling wicks
race to the metal disk
like a saint to his halo –
a praying down.
Flickering light marks
the hours to oblivion.
The middle-aged customer was dressed in flowing lines and crying. She’d come from a funeral for a former student. Bright young man. She spent $600 on a glossy cast iron teapot and a pound of white tea blended with rosebuds and candied violets. The store manager celebrated.
It’s penance if you light every candle at once
(your home fills with Black Tie, Paris Amore,
Lily Pond, Verbena) & you spend all evening
in the quiet dark of your home breathing.
His War
Fifteen months of nothing but eating
and lifting weights, he said boredom
was the worst part: maybe not boredom,
but waiting. He knew the enemy
was somewhere, beyond base
walls, in the poppy-spattered hills,
but he was there to dismantle,
not to fight. His stories were hyperbolic,
increasing in magnitude like jokes
about someone’s mother: The only death
I saw was from a car crash, a semi- hit
a bus, and this one guy’s arm was hanging
out the window and jerking and flailing.
I got so bored, one night, I held
a lit cigarette to my arm. He had the round
scar to prove it. I got so bored, I watched
when Harris (of Harris Mountain –
come up without an invitation, you won’t
come down) got a jar and filled it
with two lizards he’d caught in the armory
and then he built a fire, and buried
that jar in it, and what I remember
are those gripping pads on their feet
sticking to the glass. He never heard
a gun shot that wasn’t practice.
At home, he’d flash his I.D.
like a dare (military, no photo,
camo wallet) and bartenders
would study his jaw, the planes
of his face, the shaved sides
of his head, the blond top fluff.
I’m a veteran. He’d say it again,
like it was a punchline. I’m a veteran!
–Art by Karamelo
–Art by Mariya Petrova-Existencia
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