---
title: Ex machina
genre: verse

epigraph:
    content: with lines from National Geographic
    link: 'http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/sugar/cohen-text'

project:
    title: Autocento of the breakfast table
    css: autocento
...

Bottom of the drink: they had \
to go.  The Coke machine, the snack \
machine, the deep fryer.  Hoisted

and dragged through the halls \
and out to the curb, they sat with \
other trash beneath gray, forlorn

skies behind the elementary \
school, wondering what their next \
move would be.  The Coke machine

had always wanted to live \
the life of a [hobo][], jumping trains, \
eating from garbage, making fire

in old oil drums.  It had some \
strange romantic notions of being homeless, \
is what the deep fryer thought.

Its opinion was to head to court, \
sue the bastards at the school for early \
termination of contract.  It was

the embodiment of [justifiable anger][]. \
It believed privately that it was an incarnation \
of Nemesis, the goddess of divine

retribution.  What the snack machine \
thought, it kept to itself, but it did say \
that [nothing ever ends][].  The others

were confused, then angry, but finally \
understood, or thought they did.  The snack \
machine's candy melted in the sun.

[hobo]: prelude.html
[justifiable anger]: table_contents.html
[nothing ever ends]: no-nothing.html