Microwave Love Letters

My heart -- my heart
communicates with the microwave.
It's vibrations are my pulse. The food
inside seems to have no weight as it cooks
as I am

almost completely divorced from it.
But my heart -- my heart marks the time
as it fuels itself with blood through
sticky aortas. Out in the wild,

I might find a tureen made in the boulders
at the shore filled with seawater
-- seawater that responds not to me, but
ripples at the slightest breeze.

This is the same kind of thing.
Out in the wild, I might mistake the fuzzy
seeds at the top of tall grasses
for a kind of rice. Or I'd guess which

leaves make a tea and figure
some kind of pot to brew
and, once the fire's made, I'd sit
to wait and my veins -- my veins would tune into it

just like they do with the microwave. So no matter
the technology, this is a relationship,
to which I seem not to be a party, but it
is made up of love letters sent

out like TV static to anyone who would
hear. And I -- evil-minded I --
put on a coat and walk out of the room
until the meal is hot.

Copyright Louise Robertson