i learned that oxygen is a corrosive element / it hungers to break down / but really it finds and clings to electrons / it reduces itself / oxidizes others to neutralize and this is what it means to rust and breathe the oxygen in the air around us / saps strength from iron / until both crumble and yet this same mechanism of reaction / can build / is the only builder it is how the simplest sugars coalesce / the basis for all energy in that way / each breath is life and death one more beat expires in that way / i am machine an automaton / air in air out // some days my machinations intertwine into a single plangent wail / or a swallow some days they are silent fingertips / in the dirt / planting sow / then reap as a child i would dissect plants / their juices wick up their stems / turn bitter brown green and sticky on my fingers / rust red just beneath the skin / the machinations of muscle expenditure sow then / reap some days i run / my fingers through the grass / as if the soil is earth’s alien scalp / and i am learning / to express affection through touch / i do not flinch at the wind the way i do a hand on my shoulder // since high school / i’ve been watching myself from the clouds / as if the lack of oxygen might preserve / my organics / at the expense of the machine i am not a god / only a broken mortal / shorn from flesh / a consciousness without vessel i am learning that the tissue in my skull can make poison from something inert sow / then reap some days i wish i knew / what a swallow looks like / i wish i could recite the names of trees but / i am machine i recite the names / of the neurotransmitters i lack i am learning to generate them / with the appropriate stimuli as a child i would dissect myself / the tangy rust welling from the skin / filling notebook pages with theories / and i am learning there is only so much to learn / from destruction and a microscope / reaping / each day i am / decaying / and i am still learning / how best to die // sow / then reap

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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