He is an old man,
curly, wrinkled, a sunken shape
in a crown of broken toys.
They’re stacked high in mountaintops,
watching his lab-coat shoulders work
over a tool-silver table, with blueprint skin
and desk light marking dust along its amber beams.
They’re watching him
with fake pearl eyes and silicone limbs,
their outstretched hands the branches
in this petrified, plastic forest.
Jokers, soldiers, teddy bears,
robots, lizards, gargoyles,
all sentient with their own hearts and minds.
They were built to last too long,
now silent, dead batteries along animatronic spines.
Those green-eyed cells winked shut.
The energy spiraled away in electric coils,
a ship sinking to the bottom
of a wire-and-circuit-board sea,
forgetting everything.
He screwdriver-races and wrench-runs,
a marathon of fixing, tinkering,
repairing these broken lithium hearts
beneath his oil goggles
and sweet-frowned forehead,
hoping his own heart doesn’t stop
before he can fix his artificial children,
who outlived their lives.
About the Author
Patrick W. Marsh is a writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work has appeared in Star*Line, Carmina, Horrific Scribblings, Suburban Witchcraft, Skyway Journal, Zoetic Press, and others. He is the author of the Greenland Diaries series, a screenwriter for the 48 Hour Film Project, and co-creator of the Hidden Oaks Podcast. Though he often writes about haunted forests, fleshy warehouses, and possessed hallways, Patrick is a relatively nice guy. He has a dog, a wife, kids, and a particular brand of paper towel he likes to use.
