Rainwater spills from a gas can

down between bricks, the girl

begins her countdown

without thinking of a destination.

Mechanophobia: Fear of Machines

Mechanophobia

Fear of Machines

There is no work left for a husk.

Automated welders like us,

your line replacements, can’t expect

sympathy after our once bright

arms of cable rust over. So come

collect us for scrap, grind us up

in the mouth of one of us.

Let your hand pry at the access

panel with the edge of a knife

silencing the motor and thrum.

Come rummage through our guts

among fistfuls of wire, clutch,

pull until the LEDs go dark.

Our insides may be the jagged

gears of clocks you don’t realize

function until your blade gets stuck.

The current that sparks, scrambles up

fingertips, hurrying to your heart

will not come as a hot, ragged

light—you won’t notice when it arrives.

There is always a way to touch

the core inside and disrupt

the flow of electric pulses.

Whether the plexus leaks or bleeds,

it can be bled of its vim.

You fear the chassis that was struck

by lightning can’t be wholly crushed.

You should. Fear radios left in scrap

yards still twitching with the circuit

and hum of our mechanical hymn.

Pomegranate Means Grenade

Pomegranate Means Grenade

The heart trembles like a herd of horses. —Jontae McCrory, age 11

Hold a pomegranate in your palm.

Imagine ways to split it. Think of the breaking

skin as shrapnel. Remember granada

means pomegranate and granada

means grenade because grenade

takes its name from the fruit;

identify war by what it takes away

from fecund orchards. Jontae,

these are the arms they will fear from you.

There will always be at least one like you:

a child who gets the picked-over box

with mostly black crayons. One who wonders

what beautiful has to do with beauty as he darkens

a sun in the corner of every page,

constructs a house from ashen lines,

sketches stick figures lying face down—

I know how often red is the only color

left to reach for. I fear for you.

My heart trembles like a herd of horses.

You are writing a stampede into my chest.

This is the same thumping anxiety that shudders

me when I push past marines in high school

hallways, moments after their video footage

of young men dropping from helicopters

in night vision goggles. I want you to see

in the dark without covering your face,

carry verse as countermeasure to recruitment videos,

and remember the cranes buried inside poems

that hung in Tiananmen Square—

remember because Huang Xiang was exiled

for these, exiled for this, the calligraphy of revolt.

You stand nameless in front of a tank against

those who would rather see you pull a pin

from a grenade than pull a pen

from your backpack. Jontae,

they are afraid.

The God Engine

The God Engine

When I find a dead frog in the freezer,