butter 

pre-schooled handed we made hole-punchers 
of our mouths. dotted the menu with 
portals. butter is aways waiting
beneath the surface. a few muscles away.
we all pressed fingers to our forearms 
to feel our digits working. pianoed,
i waited for the factory to arrive
like grandfather or a railroad. 
sweetness, like all pleasures, is manufactored
in hell alongside bright orange cows 
& croissant platters. my father drives away
when we take our shifts. his shifts 
is in the bunker with the other men.
he's got blotches on his skin from
spilled grease. i used to beg him
to turn himself in but he said he couldn't.
i will understand when i'm older i guess.
for now there are jars to be filled.
butter to be sung from the faucets
& butter to draw into the right reservoir
for safe keeping. this winter promises
frozen butter on the rooves & smudged
street light. some morning when the cows 
knock at the front door like traveling salesmen
i consider a world without the substance.
what it might mean to talk to cream
in its slipper form. wild butter.
abandoned butter. everyone on my street
is hard at work at any given hour.
there is never enough. the quota is
as wide as a life. what would happen
if we just stopped producing. watched world
melt around us until the trees gasped
in delight at all the lack of productivity.
a signal they heard in space suggests 
butter on other planets even. 
i stand in the yard & pause for a moment
to wave up at them as if to say
we are making butter down here too.