I recall a taffy machine
Undulating pale yellow
Banana? Lemon Cream?
The flavor is immaterial
I remember delicate machinery
Armfuls of stretched sugar
Pressed from level to lever
Self pulled taffy
My motoral slowing
As I pass from lever to lever
*
Brains are not machines
Gray matter not yellow matter
Motoral slowing
Is not mechanical
Rather pulsed electricity
Passed from lobe to lobe
*
As I pass from lever to lever
My motoral slowing
Self pulled taffy
Pressed from level to lever
Armfuls of stretched sugar
I remember delicate machinery
The flavor is immaterial
Banana? Lemon Cream?
Undulating pale yellow
I recall a taffy machine
Molly Akin’s chapbook, Hospice, won the 2024 FLP New Women’s Voices in Poetry prize. She has read in venues including the Emily Dickinson Museum, Massachusetts Poetry Festival and Lit Youngstown. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Brevity, HAD, The Denver Quarterly, Identity Theory, Inflectionist Review, Maudlin House, Moon City Review and Paraselene. She lives on Cape Cod, MA with her family. www.mollyakin.com
