Robin Gow

ai image of us

our spit-out machine gave us a wedding
in which there were no chairs. like the apparatus,
i am too characterized by my absences.
some will call us soulless when they hear
about what we have done. the coal
pushed to the side in the mouth like a bit of chew
or sucked-dull wad of bubble gum.
i am sick of talking about evil as if it is
something dug from between shoulder blades
& backyard sandboxes. as if it is as common as rain.
the device had makers
who scoured for faces to feed it. they said,
"here are the most delicious arms" &
"here is the dreamland park of your hunger."
shot trees with their favorite guns.
stood on their porch, pouring water
onto the asphalt & laughing.
did the device, like me, weep as it learned to eat?
i have devoured onion from the yard. i have
put a spoon in my mouth to quell the future
ringing in my teeth. we were not on the street
without a stop sign. we were not
the girls whose heads did not match.
the device says, "give me another chance
to skewer your limbs." it blinks. the gods do not
have ears or at least so i have found.
instead if find it best to take all your pictures
in the dark so that no one can steal them.
our faces, like two dinner plates held
in a garden of shadow. this one is of our honeymoon.
there are no hands, just blur. a second arm for you.
what we will make with this runaway dog
i do not know. for now we have the story
of how the morning was dragged
from beneath a thumbnail.
we can ask one another, "do you remember
when we were made of leaves?"

Robin Gow (it/fae/he & él y elle) is a Lambda Literary award-winning poet and community educator. It lives with his partner Rain and their menagerie of animals on unceded Lenape land also called Allentown Pennsylvania. Fae is the author of poetry collections and young-adult and middle-grade novels. His titles include Lanternfly August, Dear Mothman, and A Million Quiet Revolutions, earning starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal, and more.