Perry Janes
Nikola Tesla. Austrian Polytechnic School; Graz, Austria. 1875
I’ve broken in
and the body knows it.
I only meant to check the time
when one clock-hand embraced the other
like boys I used to know
all tenderness
and I smashed and smashed
and smashed the brass
apart.
It was meant to be a gift
for a girl with olive hair,
but now I’ve freed these needles I can’t
put them back. I can’t help
but imagine how her dress falls in folds
like a curtain, releasing
the same drama I’ve rehearsed for
so many times: my hands
turning on her breasts, spinning gears
between her legs, confused at finding
something whole. Built. Not needing
to be fixed. Nights,
I would try to explain my dreams
of electricity.
How I run
the charge through my flesh and bite
my teeth to close the circuit,
lungs like iron bellows
and I wish, only, that I could wake
to feel her in my bones,
that singing
sting.
What is it
about the split seams of impossible
wheelwork that love me? My heart quickens
for them. God help me
should something more beautiful
fall into my hands,
these hands.