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Music Exposure

By Matthew Mahaney
Poetry•Vol. XXIX No. 3 (Winter 2016)

We are surrounded by machines.

Feed them, she says.

There is grass woven tightly around each of my fingers.
There is moss and there are aphids dying.
Their wings dissolve in pink
and yellow traces.

Still there are the machines.

I want to ask her why, but a layer of music is unfolding from her eyes.
It coats my tongue like the pollen a wasp wears.

I knew this was coming, I think.

Matthew Mahaney
Matthew Mahaney is the author of The Plural Space (Salò 2016), The Storm that Bears Your Name (The Cupboard 2015), and Your Attraction to Sharp Machines (BatCat 2013). He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

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