The Tinkerer Pauses

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 The Tinkerer Pauses 


Mid-way through the work he thinks

how life’s a bag of chips

and when you open it 

mostly air. How the nothing

he finds there only feeds 

his craving for the deeper-in 

where the crunch is kept, and past that

where he suspects the crumbles

bunch in the corner, flavor-thick 

with salt. How even there,

the elemental stuff stuck to his fingers,

he still licks the world over

like an ape for a flea. What is it

he wants? A cold Sprite, 

maybe, or just a gulp of air 

so full the thin bag of his lungs

would surely burst him free.


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