The Movements of Mechanical Objects

Someone keeps opening the music boxin the middle of the night.

It used to play Claire de Lune, nowplays muzak versions of the latest pop song.

I sleep with one eye open.The figurine has surely been pushing

her way out. Her toes are so slendershe can pry open the lock.

Her sleek limbs bunch their musclesas she lifts the lid, and

for ten seconds, she lookslike a sumo wrestler in her tutu.

If you asked her, she’d tell youwhat it’s like to be buried alive.

To spin on command.She’s been studying to be a DJ.

There are lots of classes on the internet,she’ll say. A girl can be anything.

But the dark trope only letsher rise into a sea of pink

with plush dolphins.Maybe I’ll grow up,

she says, looking around,to be a veterinarian.

You don’t tell her that her veneeris wrinkling and her belly

bulges like a squeezed tube.Her eyes chip

away without her notice.It won’t be long until

she’s retired. The bodyjunked and thrown

from the box. Separatedfrom everything that moves.