How to build an internal combustion engine

I.  Fire

Combustion is a form of amnesia,

one forgotten moment exploding into the next.

Memory is either residue or cave painting,

either accident or intention,

decompression or antelope,

always a fire globing before

curling into wall shadow.

II. The piston and the cylinder

We are inefficient vessels.

Improvements would include:

A slowed heart,

eye socket dimmers,

morning breath incinerators,

colorless workplace lunches warmed

with heat siphoned from unused loins.

Oh but look how we hang our heartstrings

out the window at the wrong times

and catch the wind.

Only the dying are fuel efficient.

We burn everything we have

for what?

III. Petroleum

Blood glows below our fingernails,

even at night so we don’t go numb.

We cannot sustain these bodies

without spilling our glowing all over.

IV. The engine

Yet if we don’t idle a while

our eyes will never adjust

to all this gleaming.

We build engines in our image

before we combust and forget them.