Stellar Furnace, by Marc McKee

The labels and label makers come later,
the lofty prerogatives, the philosopher
despising indulgences of the body and thus

unequal to an ordinary refrigerator, sheets
with high thread counts.  What comes first
is the size of a fist and 30 seconds later

it’s out of the reach of any other fist ever.
Archers, gentles, others:  supreme architectures
demand superior catastrophes.

Guilty of desolations birds flew above,
the first robot demanded a robot queen
and a story about how his side hurt

and even now it is unclear how
this story grew into every other one,
but birds flew above, and later paint

to the rescue, and quills.  The lute
was invented.  Sometimes a number
of people must die for those remaining

to agree upon the meaning
of reaching consensus.  The story
is a story of poison, of love, of knavery

and battering rams and delicate
baked goods.  So much to complain about,
so much to perish by while enamored of.

The story is of pangs with no cause
and no remedy.  Meadow into pothole,
cauldrons of committees.  Reparations?

Reparations can never be made.
And we will never give full account
of our peculiar and tenacious joy.