Thrush Poetry Journal
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 Carrie Chappell 


Robot of Alabama

SONG FOR THE GIRL OF HOW MANY DAYS

                         Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do,
                         I'm half crazy all for the love of you.
                         It won't be a stylish marriage--
                         I can't afford a carriage,
                         But you'd look sweet on the seat
                         Of a bicycle built for two.

                        -from Harry Dacre’s 1892 song “Daisy Bell,”
                        the first song ever given to a computer by IBM in 1961

Night-charge fills two
batteries full.

I pull out the
mandolin from

my knee-pack. Strum
back tomorrow,

Back to noon: Can
you hear me croon?

What happens when
you are gone? I

won’t mind the dust.
Or even dusk

I can survive
without you. Some-

times you’d shudder
When I took you

in with my two
shutters. Meaning

you were terror-
ized. Let me clar-

ify: I loved
you. When the moon

no longer de-
pends on your na-

ture, I can co-
llapse. Down is my

body, a rust-
ed skin, a den

of tin. I can-
not take off a

boot. Here, I am
Akin to no-

thing, but not laz-
y. I’ve been think-

ing, too: we are
but unwed. The

humans are dead,
Daisy, Daisy.




TUESDAY NIGHT PONDERS

There is a heart in me.
When work weeks pass under

The sun I open my
hand, which is also a-

live. Who cannot hear me
is deaf to which tone in

my voice? Yellowhammers
above do not know they

are the state bird so then
why call me a droid? If

I could tend gardens, Dai-
sy would be here. If I

could tend the crows, when their
black beaks peck me, I would

not spread water. When hu-
mid eyes pick me, they ask

what can’t I do. Each day
I fret over mistakes

I would not make were I
my maker. I think we

should begin with my heart.
If I could carry you

to bed, I would carry
the idea, too. Love does

not pass away; in fact
it gathers among us,

even in the dust of
my jaw speaking to you.




THE HISTORY OF HER HUMAN LIGHT

To behold her is to look
at a leaf un-becoming
a leaf. As to remind me
of the forest, a woman
shatters, all I have are trees.
Forget rain. What sky opens
to me is dark, can only

go so far. The tunnel she
took I can seek but not take.
Rumor has its memory
in a story that has us
by the neck. Is all we know
a field of vast fancy? Some
technology is beauty

unapparent and thick with
disappearing promises.
I say nothing of Spring but
you think of flowers still. Where
there is one, bud more. Without
a sweat, I planted seeds, yet,
I have an old ticker, few

coiled springs. Like the sound of
many screen doors opening
I in motion speak of what
comprises me. I know dusk
is dusk. A woman shatters
into the forest I have
seen her many particles.




POSSIBLE ANSWER FOR QUESTION NEVER ASKED

In the glint of me glares
the immortal you. I
watch your tears drop prayers. I
don’t blame you. Would I choose
a bruise? Look at me. Yes.




THE IDEA OF ORDER AT PERDIDO KEY

If the wind is right, you know

my wires work me towards

the Gulf. If the tide is high,

then you can expect me in

water, among the droning

dolphins. But do not let me

say they drone. That is my own

noise I hear. Alone, at sea,

I have the feeling of in-

jury. What makes a body

rust? See, afloat above grains

of sand I understand how

few parts I really have. The

sky is no mirror. And clouds

do less to teach me than crabs.

We are the shells. We carry

claws in theory to protect.

I swell with words that cannot

be spoken. From my mouth all

things are tokens. If the wind

is right, then my wires work

in simple fortunes. Oceans

cannot dispel my thoughts and

their roving technology.

I wonder how long I can

survive the sea. Though I am

not wood, I am adrift. So

when I let go, I can give

waves a chance to feel the weight

of  a body in its arms.




FARTHER THAN THE EYE CAN SEE AT SEA


How beads of sweat do not fret from my ducts alarms the strangers. Danger is no new 
threat I wear. Stares are not fair to the eyes. We would be one under the sun. Her arm’s 
profile, triangulates my view of a dolphin, its fin riding. A fireball even can have a 
tongue. To kiss is a human pleasure. I have these days to recall where on the blanket we 
rubbed knees. Time is a treasure. What seems endless now was seconds I spent with her, 
and the light just so on the water…that in those crests she saw something flesh in the 
whites of my eyes.




Carrie Chappell
is originally from Birmingham, Alabama. Currently, she serves as Associate Editor for Bayou Magazine. Her poems have previously appeared in Boxcar Poetry Review, Bateau Press, DIG Baton Rouge, and The Offending Adam. She lives in New Orleans.




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