____________—AP News Article
In Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin,
a man’s washing machine
suddenly stopped working;
he got angry and “shot it to death.”
What made him do it?
My phone rang until it had laryngitis,
but I couldn’t pull myself away
from the newspaper article.
The man fired five rounds of ammunition.
When all was said and done,
the lid of the Maytag was “a twice-pierced lip,
bereft of a stud or a hoop.”
The phone got its voice back;
being the plastic parrot that it is,
it mimicked my ex-girlfriend’s voice,
slurring with emotion.
The shooter was arrested
and held without bail.
The parrot said that unanswered letters
were piling up on my desk.
Something was mentioned
about the man’s wife,
who had been dead for five years.
I hope he is calm,
sequestered from all laundry facilities,
holding his wedding picture;
whispering sweet nothings
in his dead wife’s encased ear.
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