Man made of metal

He’d be just like you

if his eyes weren’t melded from fire

and his memories heaps of groaning iron,

with electric outlets for smiles

and rejected car parts for hearts.

Sometimes

he hears them breathing or sighing

with the weight of time.

Sometimes

whispering the names of women he’s forgotten.

They crawled from the back of his skull,

these exhausted,

mammoth creatures,

in the shapes of his thoughts--

towering, twisting--

and in the day,

sleeping in the sunflowers,

or patches of rosemary.

At night, they wander restlessly,

and he hears them,

how they keep him up at night,

grazing on God knows what by starlight.

He searches for their footsteps

when the sun finally rises—

they cannot possibly tread lightly—

but he never finds a print.

He invites the world into his house,

throwing parties through the night

in hopes to kill the clatter.

Oh, disfigure those beasts with something,

if the music cannot mute them!

Blind them with someone else’s memories,

the bright ,crisp colors from an Argentinean’s heart ,

the sad, murky shades from a Czech man’s brush.

But some days there is silence,

And he cannot explain the change—wine, humidity?—

when he can lie beneath the wisteria vines

watching the soft green glow of leaves

and he may finally forget

about these metal sculptures

that gnash their rusted mandibles, or gently

tap their copper tusks against his bedroom window,

waiting, loyally, patiently.