3
Mechanics
By Tim Kahl
The chef’s knife is the freedom flag
he waves at his brother, his mother,
who adopted him when he was four.
Overnight across the Sierras and Rockies
with the deadline approaching,
finally, the boy is abandoned in
Grand Island, Nebraska. He is awarded
to the white walls of a hospital,
wanted as much as flour bugs in
the waffle mix. Was there no tonal
center in him, only the site of
mechanical pigs racing around his
innermost rings? They oink,
and he follows. They oink, and he
imagines violence just a button push
away. Who is still able to disable it?
What last great shining theory dares
to disprove anger? No expert can
explain away its mechanics.
No expert can understand why
others harbor inside themselves
a mechanical bass that sings
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
A gear sticks. A wire breaks,
and intimates troubleshoot,
trying to learn a song for
a soul with an extra set of teeth.