Sewing Machine

// Mary Birnbaum

Another iron horse, but ridden
benched and hunched around a soft road.

A treadle for a parody of walking, like car pedals.
Streamline plastic updates ornate metal:
the ideal: cool manikin in a window.

Machine’s heart, a needle lunges and flinches
through passive cloth, while unthimbled
fingers pulse and push, a landscape
gathered,
conquered,
punished hem to hem.

Beyond the needle’s leash, beyond its point,
its echo, pain’s reflex. Pinned precision, futility.

Whining safety, steel’s limits, the power
to poke, to prod a switch.
A horizon that’s forbidden.
A challenge to rage through the fine seam.