ENGINEER
I took it apart.
When it was whole,
it wasn’t right.
Gaps everywhere, nothing
locked into place.
I laid out each piece
on the floor
in order of how they felt
in my hand—
their weight, roughness,
and what I imagined they did
when once they held together.
This
must have grinded all the rest
forward, I think,
as I set a gear down,
third in line.
I don’t know what to do
with any of them.
It is morning and still cold
when I walk outside
with what, inside my fist,
feels smoothest, heaviest—
and knock something living
out of a tree.
It made a sound,
softer than I would have
figured a small, furred body,
falling into dirt, might make.
Whole, it wasn’t right.
Apart, lined up against each other,
they were near enough good.
I left the body
to be eaten by the stray we named.
Inside lay more pieces
to find.
For each, some better use.
—from Rattle #54, Winter 2016
__________
Paula Mendoza: “I’m lousy with directions and get lost a lot. I feel peculiarly displaced, foreign and far away, anywhere I end up. Reading and writing orients me, fixes me still. I write poetry to find my way home.”
