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Overloading the Machine

Last Thursday

Resistance. Channel clicks.
On our walk we turned up stories
Reaching the sky, to climb later.
What fruit rolling in the bowl
You felt me. We explained,
Young, late and invigorated
In the flecked mirror. All patient, insistent.
Past the punctured seams the gown drifts
One early-on press. Coax,
We turned a dry topic or two,
Somber dances of holding out,
You were irrevocable, marching as minutes
The sun couldn't tick, recoiling at some failed mission.
And serene. Arcs to electric,
The path vanishing in twist.
A test
Wrinkles the eyes on either side
These years one visit. It boiled
Rust water of news. It sought
Too much essence in all encounters. From each time bargained
An etched trinket. But observe, incessant plan:
We fly confident. To red box the calendar
On the lover's wall. No doubting hours, the fingertips.

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.

-- Samuel Foote