Wheels sigh with longing for the horizon.
Hunger moans in the spoon’s hollow belly.
Tools recount the needs from which they arose
and so comprise a history of human desire.
The match recalls fear in the fireless night,
the saw’s oiled teeth plead for perfect order,
the pen cannot imagine life without ink.
Even that technology employed by the soul
in its perilous escape from the prison of the body
is exhibited here, in these letters, in words.
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Campbell McGrath’s new book of poems is XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century.