75
Deus ex Machina Erika Saunders fantasy worlds
to stay away from
where we slay
entropic exhaustion.
He-hey! They all
isolation and longing.
(Lord Kelvin would
slay the dragons,
Groundhog Day
approve.) Because
the beasts. Each
should have been
night, robins fly
filmed in ’84
this is a love song,
against greed,
because this
my love, the kind
need, tyranny in
is a love song,
of love song where
fantasy. America,
after all, my love.
the protagonist
my America, for
Let’s all be the god
In the machine—
in the machine.
grows a heart. Do not
I Am-eric(k)a wears
The web unfurls
fear, for all love
the face of Enron,
in space to spy
is transformative
Omicron, Amazon.
on time. All the red
according to Disney.
Exxon’s boots
and blue pulsing
I run my hand up
and barbed wire
wires, shielded
the back of your shirt to feel silken skin against
stamped across the land, primed
as they are from
and pumped, ready
the su(o)n. It sees
silken skin, even as we’re
red. We all see red.
shielded in synthetic
for overflow. I
It takes the human
cotton. Let the oceans
watched, and said,
eye to translate
boil and the plastics
“I must go.” But
the image to cooler
pop. Do you hear it,
couldn’t find my
tones like those
my love? The dog
feet to stand,
of You and Me. Who
is always scratching at the door. Never
so accustomed to sitting at the
wouldn’t want to be
wanting in. Always
machine. Building
the god swinging
wanting out.
from the rope? I absolve you, my child. Let’s build our fantasy world, mining databases and taking the average