Of Them That Sold Doves

 
 
         It begins with labor, what keeps this machine
         in sync within the larger gears and coils,
         the 1s and 0s chattering across channels
 
         of labyrinthine wires, and those tumblers
         on what appear to be perfectly shaped lawns
         sheened like lakes under gasoline. Or try
 
         this stick and rock and a powerful need
         to move a bigger rock, you’ve got leverage.
         But the machines come later, so this leaf
 
         afloat in a river—something keeps it up,
         a kind of tension, say, the leaf wanting
         not to fall through but not contributing much else
 
         in defense of that. The water, well,
         it’s just water; it doesn’t really have a choice;
         I mean, it was there, and labor works
 
         like that, holding back its own flood, except
         when it breaks, leaves like money running
         everywhere, except back into the water.
 
 
 
 
 

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Paul Ostremba

PAUL OTREMBA is the author of the poetry collections The Currency and the forthcoming Pax Americana, both from Four Way Books. His poems and reviews have recently appeared or are forthcoming in such places as Witness, the minnesota review, Southwest Review, Hotel Amerika, and The Houston Chronicle.

Latest posts by Paul Ostremba (see all)

• Of Them That Sold Doves - April 2, 2013