A sawtooth grows so fuzzy
that an ocean collapses.
A horn collapses into a switchblade
plunged into the Sun.
A strafe of trembling strings plunges
into a kiss sustained.
A single voice sustained becomes a signal
that becomes a shimmering choir.
A wave of signals shimmers and swells
until silence slices it shut.
Silence is a fictional noise,
but this instrument can imitate it.
When an instrument imitates enough instruments,
it comes to imitate itself.
This machine’s prime mover
became herself too.
This machine can ring
the phone in your skull.
This machine can give
you back your ears.
A beat does not have to sound
like a drum or even a heart.
A beat can sound like
ten thousand mouths.
You can break the universe open
in a clutch of knobs and keys.
Put your fingers on the keys,
and even you could break open.
Stevie Subrizi (they/she) is a genderqueer poet and rock singer-songwriter in Massachusetts. They are a former cohost of the Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge. Their chapbook Alone and Naked Inside of a Whale is the winner of the Yemassee Journal 2021 Poetry Chapbook Contest, judged by Dustin Pearson, who described its poems as “convey[ing] gravity and reality with incredible generosity and humor.” BANDCAMP INSTA
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