2 December 2004 | Vol. 4, No. 4

Speech

by MATTHEW HENRIKSEN

The part that I forgot about the robots

(Making them moral) speaks as now I dream

In actual rain (or am actually dreaming rain)

Of ghosts in the machines. No wheel left

To its own dynamic, no dynamo a solo,

The water oils the air. The grass is a wet

Mustache made of rain, a monkey's belly,

A mole's zipper, a wormy bone-yard.

How to make the monkeys moral, and the

Squirrels, and the worms, were other matters.

I was awake then, and no one knew. Even

That girl from Harvard with nice apples

Hadn't her fingers wrapped around the clue,

Though watching her stroke runs in her nylons

Reminded me of springtime in Toronto.