mutating the signature

I
Let’s not mention stars. We never see them.
Satellites and a thousand miles of cable
inside us wait to be wired up.

Our memories the only hitch,
trapped on floppy disks.

On a monitor: pixilated light,
the brush of a shirtsleeve
sparks the darkened room.

II
We pine for obsolete drives, drive
for miles through pines to an island
where birds ceremoniously eat their dead.

We watch in horror and take photos
for our blogs, which are read
the way couples eat wedding cake.

Stale pastries look like words
crowding our mouths. Half are swallowed,
half tumble out. We make a mess.

III
If our phones weren’t junk, all static
and silence, we would not imagine
the sea inside them.

Who microwaved bagged popcorn?
Admit the smell of butter into your nostrils.
Or don’t. Either way it gets inside.

Someone drags a sack
of broken glass down the street.
We sniff one another on the throw rug.

IV
What makes us nervous
before an earthquake? What sense
tells us to strap on flippers,

shove pets in a waterproof tote?
The moon is a polyp
we should excise from the night.

Here, let me lift you, go steady
with that scalpel. What other benign
but unnecessary alterations can we make?

V
The last time we went outside
we wore the sky on our shoulders.
Now it’s three sizes too large.

Look up: Can you see the ceiling?
We’re lost in a tangle of magician’s
scarves, up to our necks in silk

tulips. I move my lips when we chat.
Your fingers are slow interpreters.

VI
When we retell our story,
will we say the sky was a plasma
monitor, the living room overtaken

by pine trees? Or, somewhere
away from traffic, will we watch
satellites fall out of orbit?

Our first mistake: tracing hands and calling
them turkeys. Our second: folding pages
into birds then expecting them to fly.

Process Notes

We wrote this piece together through email and then collaboratively edited it using a shared Google document. Nathan promised to come up with a title in the morning.