Two Poems

Gun Poem

I love poems with guns
in them, especially if
the poet has the skill
to make the gun's trigger
look like a flower
or a drink of water.

The Machine They Use to Make Quarters

The noise assaults like a solid thing,
and a million discs shine briefly,
a raucous dive for a metal tub.

And 20 tons of pressure weigh on the little faces,
one at a time, counted and rotated,
then prevented from rotating.

Mrs. Prescott pushes some buttons, always
wears hearing protection. Once in awhile,
she extracts a few from the brilliant waterfall.

This one, exactly like the last,
is no reason to interrupt her
recipes, the schedule of her real life.

But her lottery day, surrounded by millions,
is when she exposes an offset, a clip,
a rotated die, a blob of grease over a face.

How will she exult in this, her odd success?
Will she hold it up in a gloved hand, shout
over the cascading roar,
Look! Something is wrong?