John McCullough
Something Fiercer
Buttons do not enjoy comparisons
with pills or coins.
Those devious tones as they bump
into fingernails, those ticks and clacks
are trademarked in the button world
they know they travel towards
when left to their own devices.
Nor is it necessary or helpful to assume
buttons are smaller versions of people.
Their lives have different, specific edges.
Consider button art, a set of possibilities
awakened not just by hanging round
on shirts but through wheeling
off into collages or assembling in jars.
When buttons meet, a small spark
of something fiercer is audible—
something halfway between desire
and accepted fate.
That’s when a layer melts,
when button games resume,
slow and global and serious.
with pills or coins.
Those devious tones as they bump
into fingernails, those ticks and clacks
are trademarked in the button world
they know they travel towards
when left to their own devices.
Nor is it necessary or helpful to assume
buttons are smaller versions of people.
Their lives have different, specific edges.
Consider button art, a set of possibilities
awakened not just by hanging round
on shirts but through wheeling
off into collages or assembling in jars.
When buttons meet, a small spark
of something fiercer is audible—
something halfway between desire
and accepted fate.
That’s when a layer melts,
when button games resume,
slow and global and serious.
Page(s) 21
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