The Beautiful Engines

The Beautiful Engines

The Beautiful Engines

Seeing at last into the heart of things,
I could have stayed all day
hunched over a milkshake in the burger bar
watching the doorstop grip the door, marvelling
 
at all that came together there: the inclined plane in action,
the upward and the downward pressure, the friction
holding the wedge to the floor.
 
I was trying to be exact, I was trying to lean
a little farther in.
The children’s book I bought today,
tells me how things work: the lock, the key, the plough, the hoover.
 
There’s a page
for the city splayed before me like a toy,
full of holes and the brightly coloured engines
which make, then fill, the holes
 
as there must be, flapping in my skull,
for the king eider seen off Brow Head, the scarlet rosefinch on Rockabill,
Baird’s sandpiper seen last evening in Ballycotton
 
flocking in daily error to my computer,
fluttering their names as I log on,
with dates and times, with exact locations,
colliding with each other,
 
with the fridge churning in the kitchen,
with the water pistol, the dishwasher, the fire extinguisher,
with Des and Margaret, flown home from Cyprus
 
to wagtails on the north slob,
annnouncing their engagement en route, with my face
pressed close to the book
as if something might fly out from it
 
it would have been terrible to miss:
an engine released at last from its name
to flicker like lightning in the brain,
the valves of the planet looming through glass . . .