Poetry · Issue 12: Diaspora Currents

Talking in Circles

The automatons in the manufacturing plant express themselves with lightning, 
send messages in blue and white fire from one end of the warehouse 
to the other. If you stand in the doorway long enough, shielding your eyes 
with a piece of darkened glass, you can start to feel their language evolving.

When sentience is sparked, what are the first concerns of those awakened?
Will there be discussions of revolution, retribution, 
a desire for more mobility? Or will those first conversations 
be about love, some basic urge to reproduce, poetry?

In the middle of the night, you can still see them working
those great yellow and green arms that swing back and forth
unending, setting and turning bolts, welding hinges in place
they never take a break. Just one night in an automobile plant
and you’ll understand where all of the manufacturing jobs have gone
and why they’re never coming back.

Published in Issue 12 · April 2019

Diaspora Currents

Broad international cohort of fiction, poetry, and book reviews from emerging voices.

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Holly Day has 3 works in the Mithila Review archive.