Hope Is a Wrecking Ball
Ode to a Machine
The jukebox or the bevel grinder.
A wheelbarrow.Things that do their jobs
when pressed.A dishwasher, of course,
is a comfort.Not like a weedwhacker,
or a tire iron,the way a wheel chock
can keep a secret.This morning as I razed the onion grass,
I rememberedhow my father once steered the riding mower
with my sisteron one knee and me on the other.
When he left,we used our fingers to pick debris
from the dandelions,after someone crushed his 6-disc changer
with an Easton B5.Even a baseball bat, after all,
can be a kind of lever,a fulcrum on which to balance
what we could notshovel—
not hope, exactly,but what precedes it:
a wrecking ball or a Roombaa stopwatch or train.
When I Wake My Daughter for School She Tells Me I’ve Ruined the Dream She Had
Yes, love, I say to her: Don’t I know it?
And yet. Just imagine—how much else can be ruined
by love,by that which we’ve dreamed
might love us in return.Here, dear,
is what I’ve been trying,failing every which way
to teach you:the world is equal parts
reverie and premonition.Sometimes to dream
is to see the world as it could be.Sometimes to dream
is to see the world as it is& remain awake.
