I Want

the real voice, the one that haunts me.
It mimics the grind and shift.  Stop.
Jerk start
cogs    wheels    cymbal din.
Mocks pollution of unused industry.
Gears turn full
then reverse.

Truth is not beauty unless we don’t understand what beauty is.
Studies support this.
If the word “unless” is no older than the fourteenth century,
there must have been another way to neatly explain conditionals.

Wheels lock.
Must be a feather
in the system or
a piece of string
(from the sweaters
my mother finds me).

I want to write

(but)

wheels lock

(when)

my mother finds me