in the declining years of the long war

Pilot

We are profoundly limited machines.

ii.

We touch where the dirt finds its stomach turning. We don’t know what you would score points for if not war.

iii.

We find uses for ourselves, and more often for others. Those of us who hear of the machines find absence makes the heart grow fonder. We suggest a game.

iv.

We say, Who would like to play the game with us? We say, Do not come near us — the game is played over there. We say, The clouds in this age are not such thick curtains. We say, We’d like that city; won’t you fetch it for us?

You, werewolf boy afraid of only half the wrong things, will play. You, red-bannered man pulled by a thread whose provenance you do not know, will play. You, death-marked, play. You, death-crowned, play.

The Travelling Salesman Problem

Each time you leave, your tether is remade
a stranger. Spilling long hours into composing
carillons for two, on the back of a sheet
that reminds you trains could still be running
somewhere. Fortunately,

your problems aren’t ones of scale anymore.
Your tether keeps the flowers you gave him.
Your tether doesn’t look you in the eye.
Somewhere, you’re running.

Your tether

screams

at your cracked chassis

cracked in the hard wound of the ravine

screams

because he is not wired

wired like you

and he likes it
undoubled, made of soft spots
little unknowns

licking blood
from your shoulder blade

he binds you back in
the arms

of the monster which cradles
your glory.

Shrapnel

patina / silicate / hemoglobin

torch joints / candescent molting shells

high-velocity / third-degree / reconstructed hand least of your worries / except / except

you’re begging at his body / how you made yourself / the sky / over him / your pound of flesh / transmuted / cheap ribbons (are like concert tickets)

heat / the absence of absence / the wild careening / sky into meat into puddle in the weeds / colder than still / your fingertips this voicebox static / harmonizing / to the opened ribs you cradle / no other hands know his blood so deeply rust cakes in their creases / your

tether-wolf / your

leash and line / your

first soft sacrifice in the handbook’s line of fire

patience / patience / skin grated by / ventilated air / the only rooms big enough to fit you are all power-washer-cleaned / he’s the only / one

your body kicks / its own engine from the bay / and you get away with it / as only the / best / and brightest / and indulged / do

verdict: medical leave, two weeks / plus half / which you tear from them with / your painted teeth

Fervour

They try it on your pilot first. A test. An
experiment. You’ve earned it.

In the corner of two rows of cautiously
optimistic beds, your blood moves through
you sluggishly, curious where its
compatriots have gone, the last good things
in a dying world. You sneak a touch,
your palm under his chin,
static shock that makes the machinery bleat
with horror. You’re touching him.

It’s not magic yet. You haven’t rolled it over
your tongue like a shrinking sweet yet, sugar
souring where your spit corrodes it. You’ll
know it then. Right now it is the hydraulic
rise, crush, crunch. Bubbled like soda in his
blood, giddy, burbling, asking for anyone’s.
Maybe even for yours.

in the garage two buildings over.
They don’t disconnect you
when you’re done. It’s
no good wasting the time.
The flesh only runs so
hot for so long.

Heart-to-Heart

When the war began, he
and you left your sweat
on the same training harnesses,
heard the same presentations on the
ways tethering fucks you
up for the greater good.
Shuddered together through
simulated unlinking — they
still loved you enough for that —
and said you’d match. Didn’t
think past that.

Did you know of the bodies
your bodies would leave,
open, opened, on the
ground, or vomiting
on the concrete before
the big bay doors? Did
you know you were each
too selfish for the other?
They call it
nuclear fusion
in their notes.
Your fingers touch the
gaps.