Machine Poem

A machine is made of charming ore
someone had to mine that stuff
and smelt it and then there was the hullabaloo
about getting it from there to here
and all the little kids with seat belts
around their necks pretending to choke
on vomit when the truckers trucked on by.
No, the worst part is waiting and then
starting the machine starring me
in a coded musical about stuff I'm
not allowed to talk about on Broadway.
Everything is falling but the sky just
seems to hold us upright long enough
to burp us and roll us over your arm is asleep
I'm writing this with it, so wake up
so I can tell you stories about my childhood:
the places I kept magazines
and the love letters I'll never throw away
deep in my Father's basement, on a metal shelf,
in a plastic tub, in the dark, in Iowa.