In the Era of Machines

She has never understood the difference between driving and
being driven.
There are wheels in her hands even when
they are empty
and those wheels are always turning,
meshing like gears with the wheels inside her head,
grinding backward but
never in reverse.

These are fundamental mechanisms and
they propel her toward a misunderstanding of what
"action" really is.
She does things,
she moves, she speaks,
she reaches out or pulls inside, but
where the energy arises, where the fuel is burned that
creates these motions,
is of no concern to her.

This heat
will just create more heat and
wheels and gears will turn or not turn,
sync smoothly or strip themselves;
a pile of metal shavings gathers around her and
these little slivers of brass and iron and steel
can be extremely sharp and
they cover everything around me like
some kind of vicious dust,
a lethal pollen,
the kind of thing we put in hamburger for the neighbor's dogs.