Humming
The slow hum of machines disturbing everything— louder than cries and just as sweet, echoing through air thin with autumn; even the hush of wind is too delicate to be heard or enjoyed. Everything rattles, turns tricks like skateboards over concrete, but no one speaks, no one takes time to turn back the noise; the hums consume everything like a wash of rising water that makes room for every shape it covers. And when the waves come you must think with a square face— set aside motion and the narrow door, pick the blood from your nails and go. The haste that makes us real can taste a lot like the hate that makes us see faces in the dark or hear rumbles in the night like bombs. If you move too slowly the water laps at your toes like tongues where the foot sticks and the ground turns to cement and the sky opens wide to swallow you.