By: Heather Hughes

 

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in this : the year of drowning
fantasies : who identifies
                           the carcass

—

                                                                          
I’m the particle
                          I posit

                         desperate
                                        to explain
                                        the absence

                                                      no : I’m
                                                      Absentia

—

turn me to gold : turn me
into a satellite-whip :

          a sterile
                      offering

—

I named the robot
          Incandenza

—

: be careful :
: as you pass :

—

the history of bad
                       readers : I mean :
                                  bad machines

                                  I mean : merely history

—

who is the knife

meteorite
           afterlife knife : harmless
           bathtub knife : strict dresscode knife :
                       aphasia knife : striptease

—

eureka : a body

                           displaced

—

I’ve said it
a thousand times : a woman

                                        is a contained
                                                       explosion :

—

if I have a choice : I’ll trust the eponymous
             nonexistent dead one :

                            don’t wait up

—

reward me : I want : like
               everyone else : recognition
                              for my goodness

—

the robot invents
                             a new too-famous
                             suicide skirt :

                             there isn’t a name
                                           for the widow : but
                                                         it should be Astucia

—

venus too
                              bright : who licks
                                            the ankle strapped
                                            by the spikiest heel
                                                                       and stays after
                                                                                     the lightning

—

turn me on a lathe : turn
              my crank : turn the toothy
                           automata key

feel the click

—

: we’ll talk :
: and I won’t :
: understand :

: if that will make you happier :

—

little lexicon
                            of recorded bodies :

                                           ready to be
                                           duplicated

—

set the noxious gas-giant
stage for the reenactment : reject
              horror : unless the lighting
              is just-so : the faces exquisite

              someone : the screen
              reassures : someone
                              else will
                              show up

—

I huddle
                         in the ugly  yes
                                                            of the mechanical
                                                                                                feminine

—

the story buried
in the story is typically
                                        a warning : unless
                                        it is a history

—

: the noise :
: came :
: from here :

—

I cannot gift
the gear-perfect
godling : but I promise

a sword : I promise the usual
unsavory revenge : a swift
and fantastic tragedy of accolades

—

the frost bowl
              collects its miracle :
               morning collects
                                its coin

 

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Heather Hughes hangs her heart in her native Miami and her current town of Somerville. Her poems recently appear or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Denver Quarterly, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Gulf Coast, Prelude, and other journals. She is also a letterpress printer, a writer for Mass Poetry online, and an editorial associate for Scoundrel Time. Find her online at birdmaddgirl.com.