THE TIN MAN

by Matthew McDermott

Coco Fusco: Twilight at The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL. 

Beauty makes me long to build hotels.
Dorothy stood here once, her hands on her slaphappy hips.
She spoke glowingly of Kansas. I thought of her milky white tits.
She cast my advances aside, wanting true love from my heart.
I mimed my felonious advances, knowing of no other art.

The therapist sailed in confidently and tied three volunteers to me.
He rolled me down a mountain slope, trying to set a new side of me free.
We headed west, until, one day, we came to the great Muddy.
Surrounded by prairie dog dens, he sought to introduce America to me.

Off, off, off! I whispered, but we were tied together like a bundle of sticks.
The therapist flew above us in a balloon, watching to see if my mind was cleared.
My parents were killed in a car crash when I was twelve, said the man strapped
to my back. I cleared my throat as one is supposed to when sympathy is required.

I have breast cancer, said the woman on my front, but I couldn’t get a look
at her, no matter how I writhed. I gave up and threw my weight to each side.
Come on, I said. What’s your deal? I’m waiting. You better not be dead.
I can’t take the smell, the bugs, the worms! Just then, I heard the therapist’s voice.

This worked before on a man with a heart of coal, but here we only have an absence,
a tin chest acting as a relic of our forgotten humanity. I wash my hands of you,
there’ll be no rebirth; for here strides our grifter-in-chief, the Tin Man. To feed his ego
he would sell the earth, or your sister, your dog, your child: all are casino chips to him.

I shrugged at his pronouncements. And smiled. Why am I so lovable then?
There’s one thing, I, as a grifter, know. It’s not me, it’s you. I couldn’t do
any of this without you. I will remake this nation in my image: hollow men.



Matthew McDermott is a poet and nonprofit manager who lives in the Chicago area.

DECEMBER

by Clara B. Jones 

Image source: Gawker

It's December so I bought lights brighter than the sallow skin of my guardian who is nice enough but never invites me to Christmas dinner since the five-year-old is afraid of robots. My surrogate said, On a scale of 1 to 5, how much would you like to spend the day at Starbucks®? I decided to walk because humanoids ask me personal questions when they corner me alone. Are you happy? Do you want a mate? Do you wish a mechanical family had adopted you? Starbucks® promotes diversity so no one stares when I order peppermint latte and a cranberry scone though a little girl in line called me, Tin Man®—a slight more amusing than offensive. Besides, I am superior to anyone here since my microchips are programmed with the complete works of Charles Dickens, and the Mayor invited me to play The Christmas Carol in the town square at six. My performance will be bot-streamed to my Facebook® page, and I have habituated to the bullying I receive in public since a technician dampened my sensory registers that should function well until my expiration date next year. The Mayor asked me, On a scale of 1 to 5, how close do you want to stand to the Wise Men? I pretended not to hear him since it sounded like a trick question.

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity & power & conducts research on experimental poetry & radical publishing. Clara is author of three chapbooks, & her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous venues.