On Hope and Robots

Under weight of woolen sweater sky,

Through streets that stab and scrape my limbs
with jagged fingernails,

Passing drapes and dead-bolts
and Do Not Enter entryways,

Amid the throngs of automatons
who do not read poetry

and cannot make love without batteries–
My heart still ticks inside its brittle cage of bone

And pigeons hum the same primordial verse

As I recall that Hope did not escape Pandora’s jar.