“Mechanical Alligator” by J. Zachary Rothstein
Implements
Softly-bound and doubtful pockets cut a suitable machine
out of ice, counting the number of apertures replaced
further afield. Together, uncertain of “a city on the inconstant
billows” and much too windy, Levanesky’s lost flyers
persist northward, a presentation quiet and more civilized.
A massive summer starts over in the spirit of a polar
bear, in the spirit of a penknife. It’s a packaged
order from the top of the world once teaming with misspelled
bluebells and primroses, frost smoke and cockpits, lichen-
covered rocky surfaces, old rags strung at the back of the plane
over the fuel tanks we’ve forgotten about. The missing
riverbank is useful in its own way as if fitted by a hidden sky,
by a slight pair working on the trading station together. The in-
vogue game of pick-up-sticks applies its glue to the margins
in low-cut evening wear after a stormy back and forth has traced
the game itself back to an earlier form of summer.
*Quote from Henry V encountered randomly in an old recording.
Innumerable Stumble 