Maria Nazos

This isn't my dream-job. As a young sheet of steel and plastic I dreamt of being melted down into a dancer's pole in Vegas. I wanted a woman in a headdress glossy as a gossamer to wrap her lithe limbs around me. I wanted to be strewn in lights, smell her powdery perfume. Instead I'm a squat box crouched behind the counter, noticed only if someone robs me. I'm touched all day, but never caressed. Listen: somewhere gold tokens spew from slots. I want to drink space-alien-dyed martinis on black leather sectional couches. Watch tipsy women with acid- washed jeans and teased hair dreamily press their faces against slot machines while people treat currency carelessly as spit in the wind. I'm everywhere you look, ubiquitous and ignored. I'm the container of your dreams that tossed aside my own. I've kept my clean, sleek lines but you never say a thing. Feed me, feed me with the only love we know.