Poetry Thursday: Matthea Harvey

Introduction to the World
by Matthea Harvey


For the time being
call me Home.

All the ingénues do.

Units are the engines
I understand best.

One betrayal, two.
Merrily, merrily, merrily.

Define hope. Machine.
Define machine. Nope.

Like thoughts,
the geniuses race through.

If you're lucky

after a number of
revolutions, you'll

feel something catch.



From Sad Little Breathing Machine by Matthea Harvey. Copyright © 2004 by Matthea Harvey and printed here under the Fair Use Provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act. Published by Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. All rights reserved.

Image: Kneeling Sailor, 2001. Oil on canvas. By Greg Decker.

[via Poets.org and the Poets in Their Thirties Archive]