Day 17 #napowrimo - day 11 #the100dayproject - The Fax Machine

For today's prompt, we were enlisted to write a poem about obsolete technology....

The Fax Machine

It still occupies the forgotten

corners of offices beneath water stained

ceiling tiles, next to tired coffee machines.

There are occasions when it rumbles,

takes a breath, and spits out a paper or two.

Only once in a while, a secretary punches

in numbers, lines up papers, and offers

them to the machine, like prayer or alms

to keep it moving through hard times.

Then it orchestrates dial tones

like a wind-up music box from the old days.

When the cubicle dwellers hear it,

they think it could be a bird

that flew through an open window

or a mouse squeaking in the HVAC.

But it’s just the relic with its aura

of toner, the dry aerosol a thumbprint

In the air to mark its territory.

Everyone ready with expletives

To describe the awkward beast,

Its yellowing plastic and the musical

sounds of connection, completion

followed by uncertainty. Somewhere

a copy of something was sent, and always

the fear that it gets there, somewhere,

or nowhere, in some form.