My Mother's Olivetti

taught me to type
just as a difficult horse
makes a good rider.
It was massive and intricate,
like a Wurlitzer organ. I wrestled
with the keys. When I struck just right
the tiny cast-metal letters
banged the platen, loud as horse's hooves
trundling the carriage ahead
with stoicism more Slavic or Germanic
than Italianate.

Olivetti's out of business now,
couldn't muster enough obedient coin
by marketing their ironclad Merrimack
in the era of mice and monitors.
Horse and buggy in the land of the automobile,
only my calloused fingertips remember
your staggering staccato gallop.

--another word salad poem
Collection available! Knocking from Inside