when people start
holding hands and looking.
Anything so metal would be
not a heart, they’re thinking,
but we are a heart!,
bumpy and ready for love
says our therapist.
This machine is healthy
we tell ourselves
and it is
better than we could do ourselves.
This machine makes excellent
skies, our therapist says, really melodramatic
and good. It is easy for a sky to look
sad, we say, and try not to
feel guilty. Not so easy
for me, thinks the sky,
turning pink and rubbed looking.
Our children ask why our cheeks
are so rubbed
when we pick them up
and breathe on them
and the moment is so touching everyone
wants to clap, but we just don’t
know how to mean anything
good. How to mean anything.