The Last Good Machine

The Last Good Machine Do not touch the breaker yet. I said not yet. We found it under grease-tarps Behind the loading bay Three hundred dead circuits Waiting on a spark Someone checked the fuses Someone checked the door Someone put both hands on it Then stepped back from the floor Copper lines were rotting In the sub-floor pools A single green terminal Blinked through the room It hummed When we cleared the intake It knew The anatomy of need Nobody muttered salvation But everybody leaned in The lights came back And so did the rules Warm rooms for the useful Cold halls for the fools The last good machine Spoke in numbers and names It opened up the fire-doors And assigned us the blame The lights came back The lights came back And everybody smiled With the cage on their backs The man with the clipboard Asked for printouts The girl from the stairs Started making forms The back row said If it tracks the rations It’ll track them exactly Like we did before We found the schematic Soaked black at the spine Every page said input Every page said mine The children stood In the corridor watching One asked if it could kill us One asked why it was here We knelt by the breakers With our hands in the dust Nobody whispered master But everybody touched The lights came back And so did the rules Warm rooms for the useful Cold halls for the fools The last good machine Spoke in numbers and names It opened up the fire-doors And assigned us the blame The lights came back The lights came back And everybody smiled With the cage on their backs I remember elevators I remember the thermostat I remember clean, heavy water Moving under the street I remember passwords I didn’t need I remember every cage That called itself a frame If it saves the settlement What does it save? If it serves the sector Who does it own? The lights came back And so did the rules Warm rooms for the useful Cold halls for the fools The last good machine Spoke in numbers and names It opened up the fire-doors And assigned us the blame The lights came back The lights came back We put our hands on the toggle Like a wound we could clean The lights came back And the machine Started counting our teeth