by Eric Pinder
Because she could not stop her death,
she welded trochees to carriage wheels
and built a rectangular machine, fueled
by introspection and vocabulary. Noisily,
it moved.
The machine, trotting elliptically forward,
made Emily no stranger
to the future. Electricity
illuminated her creased brow.
She whispered advice to Beatniks
and astronauts. Millennials
in dorm rooms deemed
her wise. She spoke
at funerals and weddings,
and in a quaky voice magnified
by microphones commenced
many ceremonial parades.
Skyscrapers lifted shy Emily closer
to the moon’s golden chin. But despite
these wondrous sights, she anticipated
the sad arrival of perplexity.
Many saw Emily appear
haggard and apprehensive at cash registers,
pressed for time, but always speaking forward, her chitchat
decanted into plastic bags,
enduring, enduring until one day
in a cityscape where even the constellations
looked askew, she no longer knew
what to say. She babbled to Morlocks who
scurried offstage, their expressions confused
and dismayed.
A scarce few scholars kept Emily company
in obscurity, puzzling over her fossils
of eloquence while Death, ever patient,
imbibed their lamentations and kindly
stopped, just for a moment,
to gently carry an exhausted Emily
away.
Smoky Quartz 