30 July 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 2
working on it
so i got tethered to
the fixing of things—
funny this jar won't open hot
or cold, funny this engine
had more parts before i rebuilt it.
it seems a mind
can be much like this
old bike i've been working on,
the one i keep mentioning
over the phone. now, the bike
seems to have a voice,
seems to shrug in its stance: impatience.
i've added it up, charted the bike
like an atlas—spoke, cog, sprocket.
something, though, isn't right.
it just sort of
half works.
you say what would the world be
without a script or a manual, a knot
to undo. i wonder
whether words are
a cruelty of sorts
or scraps of metal bent slightly
out of form. wonder how we use the telephone
to muster up a return, to fall
into the pothole, that is,
an apology.
About the author:
Cade Collum is the author of two chapbooks titled The Dogs of Havana (Red Hydra Press, 2008) and Lion-Froth Crown (Red Hydra Press, forthcoming). His poems have also appeared or are forthcoming in Vulcan and Ginosko. He received a B.A. in Psychology and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he is currently living and working as a full-time Instructor.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Cade Collum at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 2, where "working on it" ran on July 30, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
