Hum of the Machine God Poem by Jamaal May

There isn't much to discuss with the Machine
God, though its voice is hard to ignore;
it speaks in planks of wood shaped for the sea,
sputters of smoke, eats grass. It speaks in snow
spit into piles, commands the motion of a needle
through a hem. It hums. It waits.

Once, in a parking lot, it spoke to a boy waiting
for an exchange between a sewing machine
and his mother to come to an end. Mother's needle-
skilled fingers had already learned to ignore
pain, but the boy's hands were supple. The snow
under Father's idling car became a sea,

running into drains towards another sea
the boy hoped and hopes is out there waiting.
Almost heard it one morning, shoveling snow
as a neighbor's open garage rattled with machinery,
boatbuilding tools, a thrum he knew to ignore.
Damn fool, Father said, might as well build it with needles,

but the spell held the boy. To watch the needling
of a board through a notch was to see a wooden sea-
dragon and dream of riding it away. Boy, don't ignore
me. A lip split open. Shovel. Father hated waiting
and had even less patience for the broken machine
coughing exhaust in the yard, clutching a snow-

colored stone in its throat. Yes, he prayed the snow-
blower would take Father's hand. Yes, the needle
of Mother's scream, as the thumb was machined
clean off, brought icicles down. The boy listened for the sea.
Gripped his shovel. Gripped his oar. Now, in a waiting
room, he bows to the florescent hum and begs. Ignore

my prayer, goes his stupid little prayer, please ignore
my voice. The thumb in a jar packed with snow,
will take a miracle for doctors to reattach. Waiting,
as if to plead, Let me try my hand, give me the needle,
Mother taps a knitting needle against the sea-
foam-colored formica, rapid as a machine,

but the Machine God, still busy with the lights, ignores
the needle's morse code prayer, while the boy waits
for snowmelt in his mouth to taste of oak and sea.