I Build Engines

by Bruce Boston

I build engines
from the lines of battle
no matter how they are drawn.

I build engines
from the lungs of drowned sailors,
their last breaths billowing the waves.

I build engines so lubricious and lubricated
you can feel them in your blood
before you hear them.

I build engines that churn entire continents
without revealing a word.

I build engines that feast on copses
of burning hair and thickets of eyelashes.

I build engines from milk and meat
and the decanted semen of aborted generations.

I build engines as natural as the habitats
they immure and incinerate.

I build engines from the babble lust
of court whores and camp jesters,
the confessions of the desecrated and shamed.

I build engines from the sins of the fathers
and the rumored indiscretions
of mothers and wives.

I build engines that fill your boots
with scorpions while you sleep.

I build engines that jackknife your dreams
with ingenuous apparitions
and ingenious doppelgangers.

I build engines from ivory and scrimshaw
and the jawbones of apes.

I build engines
from the lines of battle
no matter how they are drawn.

Appeared in Lone Star Stories