Maker

Creatures,
he says to the infant in the stroller,
pointing to the construction on his worktable,
to others around the studio.
You must be alert.
They are watching.
Sometimes they decide to speak.
 
They have afterthoughts.
You understand how that would be.
They interrogate themselves,
their symmetries,
their hypotheses.
 
Please do not gurgle,
he says, burnishing an oarlock with his drill.
We are in the vicinity, here,
of severities,
of imperatives,
of random, coincidental, distinguished things.
 
Examples.
This is fundamental, I think we surely agree.
They are examples
of how frenzy and feasibility collaborate.
 
Oho. Yes.
It is an hour propitious
for iconoclasm,
for soliloquy,
for honest engineering
and unbearable propositions.
 
You and I and they
may be the only metaphysicians about.
 
And we will get you dancing lessons.
 
Shh,
he says, cutting a gash in a cardboard tube,
This may be it —
if it does not relent.
See how it stirs?

Oliver Rice | Mudlark No. 41 (2010)
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