Valves, clamps, tubes, washers.
At night especially,
I can feel them knocking
under my fingers. They are tender
and immediate as their burden,
their weaknesses are slight enough
to be disastrous: an incidental
whisper, the brush of brick
or bone; how many secrets
would come flooding forth?
Rocco de Giacomo
As appeared in Existere, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2011.