Edison in Love

Thomas Edison loved a doll

with a tiny phonograph inside

because he made her speak.

Is there any other reason

to love a woman? Did she say   

the ghost of my conception

or something equally demure?

It’s hard to be sure how he feels

when he holds me, I fall apart.   

I’m projecting here. He didn’t feel   

her first transgression

was in having no expression.   

René Descartes, too, traveled alone   

with a doll-in-a-box

he called his daughter. Francine,

Francine... is it better to be silent   

and wait for everything   

we were promised?

Or should we love them back,   

the way a train loves its destination,   

as if we have the machinery necessary for it?