“they made no effort to communicate with me, but simply stood
round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other”
– HG Wells, The Time Machine
She crouches beneath his chin, one leg twisting
to fit the whole of her body inside
gaps allowed by extremities of him.
That’s a glum face she tilts out from his front.
[It’s early evening, light still, high cameras
jerk like shaky skulls barbed on building tops,
automatic announcements in the trams;
everyone the heir of Jacquard: things by choice.]
They break apart and gesture in the air
now; they look outwards, not quite off the ground,
and now, almost unaware of themselves;
then recombine and hang on strong air flows
pushing downhill towards low land, swaying,
suspended around an axis they’ve agreed.
--
Lawrence Upton
AHRC Creative Research Fellow
Dept of Music
Goldsmiths, University of London
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