when heat lamps die

I didn’t know when things

stopped being warm

or when the aluminum rollers

failed to turn the burden they carried

or understand what the failure

of their nourishment meant

just that they weren’t what they used to be

and when their fingers

punctured the reconstituted parts

tasked with awarding diminishing pleasure

they felt less too

in the unfamiliar temperature

but things kept birthing from holes

and teeth sought other teeth

and a morsel to muffle the sound

afforded a silence

that made us indifferent

to dying bulbs