"Ex Machina," by Linda Gregerson

Author: Linda Gregerson

Linda Gregerson, “Ex Machina” from Fire in the Conservatory (Port Townsend, Washington: Dragon Gate, 1982). Copyright © 1982 by Linda Gregerson. Reprinted with the permission of the author. Source: Fire in the Conservatory (Dragon Gate, 1982)

1 When love was a question, the message arrived
in the beak of a wire and plaster bird. The coloratura
was hardly to be believed. For flight,

2 it took three stagehands: two
on the pulleys and one on the flute. And you
thought fancy rained like grace.

3 Our fog machine lost in the Parcel Post, we improvised
with smoke. The heroine dies of tuberculosis after all.
Remorse and the raw night air: any plausible tenor

4 might cough. The passions, I take my clues
from an obvious source, may be less like climatic events
than we conventionalize, though I’ve heard

5 of tornadoes that break the second-best glassware
and leave everything else untouched.
There’s a finer conviction than seamlessness

6 elicits: the Greeks knew a god
by the clanking behind his descent.
The heart, poor pump, protests till you’d think

7 it’s rusted past redemption, but
there’s tuning in these counterweights,
celebration’s assembled voice.

DMU Timestamp: March 29, 2021 09:11