The Invention of the Kaleidoscope

Rubbed

 rubbed It’s a simple resistance between the pull of springs and struggle of joints: two coiled silver muscles working in the lamp against blue washers and pivot plates, locking nut coolly swiveling loose with age. In the arm it’s done with blood: tissues plumped then promptly deflated. What else am I supposed to start with? Not the light bulb, to which this whole narrative yearns, loving the glass envelope sizzling with light, grasshopper antennae scrubbed with electricity until each filament’s turned to fire. No, I have to start with the arm first, the mint-blue lamp, then maybe light itself to specify what startles me about you, globe of hot fruit, Christ heart throbbing in the open chest; curtains of robe parted just enough to see what afterglow defines us, waits for us, rubbing its slow music out into the wet dark— Tonight, I’m counting out my seeds of waiting for you through a current that is silent and might always be, though it thrums in every gesture: 8 like this white eye burning within the metal shade I carefully adjust over a plate of orange slices each evening. ...