We construct it from tin and ambergis and clay,
  ochre, graph paper, a funnel
  of ghosts, whirlpool
in a downspout full of midsummer's rain.

It is, for all its freedom and obstinance,
  an artifact of human agency
  in its maverick intricacy,
its chaos reflected in earthly circumstance,

its appetites mirrored by a hungry world,
  like the lights of the casino
  in the coyote's eye. Old
as the odor of the almonds in the hills around Solano,

filigreed and chancelled with flavor of blood oranges,
  fashioned from moonlight,
  yarn, nacre, cordite,
shaped and assembled valve by valve, flange by flange,

and finished with the carnal fire of interstellar dust.
  We build the human heart
  and lock it in its chest
and hope that what we have made can save us.