Unsurance

The hands are wired for sound, and they ring out.

Do not remember falling, or even the colour of late sky in
doppler shift.  Do not remember the crisp overlay to late
autumn damp, or how water takes its edge in the
eager winter.  Do not.

Or perhaps powered by pistons to thrust in stunted reach,
to huff steam and pop, to slide back in oiled susurrus.
A robot shanty:
      spoke, unspoke, spun, unspun, ring rust whisper sing.

Do not remember mechanics.  Do not conjure a voice coil.
Remember instead the word and its alternating current origin;
try to remember falling, but fail.

One hundred drums, and each wire twitching in time;
one hundred lungs emptied and, with wind, sluiced, made paste,
slung away, vacuum fistuled, crunched into a single
red red blood cell hurdling memories strewn in sleep and
waking.

They are hungry from sleep, and there stiffens a coil, like
copper, greening according to its proper rhythm.  They are
roiling in hunger and cannot be bothered to remember, and
the hands come loose and spasm about looking for food and
forgetting each song but the robot shanty. Susurr, succor, sting.