Mechanimism
crankrankrankrankrank
around the silk mill runs
a god,
stark naked, canines looming—
whether we weave the material
or buy it
we produce, consume, expend—
no—
there’s something deeper:
what’s vanished,
what was made to vanish—
we stopped walking naked, yes?
put on the animal’s skin
& sang, danced, worshipped its severed head,
the material woven,
the roots of the downy hair
reeking
with the breath of what’s buried—
crankrankrankrankrank
around the silk mill
on four legs,
furry, sticky, horny-nosed,
it gobbles up
gulp!
the mill women
who spit the thread—
get out of here!
Rina Kikuchi is an Associate Professor at Shiga University, Japan. She has an MA in comparative literature from the University of Warwick and a PhD in contemporary Irish poetry from Chiba University, for which she conducted a year of research at Trinity College, Dublin. She is a visiting fellow at ANU and the University of Canberra, and is currently working with Canberra-based poets on an anthology of translations of poetry by contemporary Japanese women.
Jen Crawford is author of Admissions (Five Islands Press, 2000), bad appendix (Auckland: Titus Books, 2009), Napoleon Swings (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2009), Pop Riveter (Auckland: Pania Press, 2011), Koel (Cordite Books, 2016) and Lichen Loves Stone (Tinfish Press, 2016). With Rina Kikuchi, Jen co-edited and part-translated Poet to Poet: Contemporary Women Poets from Japan (2017), an anthology of 10 contemporary female Japanese poets. Jen is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra.
