Packard Deskjet 610CL & Milk crates
by Rose Hunter
[ poetry - september 08 ]
Hewlett Packard Deskjet 610CL
After the preliminary
buzzing announcement
it whirrs into action,
like licking a series of envelopes
if you were to stage
a replenishing head shake
in between. Its boxy maw
(not always so considered,
but now the unfashionable
kid on the block
with the hand-me-downs
from the previous
decade) trembles in
steady regurgitation of
someone else's words. Also,
like many of us, when overloaded:
blinks and stutters and shrieks
and then shuts down.
Milk crates
Like the staple they are made to contain
they too, have a basic elegance.
The cube beloved by artists
with diamond shapes
around the mail-slot-like
groove, an easy place to grasp
above the triple underline.
In my neighbourhood, they are the colour
of Whistler's Peacock Room with
shards of themselves hanging down
like grated cheese.
I think of the violence
absorbed, when, heavy,
they hit the concrete, the curb, the
road, the truck's hold; slashes of white
against the green. And what
they've been witness to
in blind alleyways at three
and four a.m., or on street
corners.
