model numbers | tumult
I find a / video demoing / how my grandfather’s mechanical / calculator worked //
before the smartdust / is ubiquitous // any sur / -face a touch / -screen
numbers were pinwheeled // tumble; to mult / -iply is to rot / -ate, slot / and crank
I have no / spring-offs myself / but a result / window has its base / ten and rust // parts stuck in remainder of endless nines // what infinite that video / shows to mean / having gone / one crank too far // an aperture sill / waiting for the sign
by the time / I arrived, he had / a solar celled / pocket to digit / crunch in a country / with decimal / separator as comma // now we are at the point // this device now ant / -ique noncrawl I account / for al- / one
Vanessa Couto Johnson (she/they) is the author of the full-length Pungent dins concentric (Tolsun Books, 2018) and three poetry chapbooks. Dialogist, Foundry, Thrush, TERSE. Journal, and others have published their poems, and their creative nonfiction appears in The Account and FEED. A Brazilian born in Texas (dual citizen), VCJ has taught at Texas State University since 2014.
You can see more of their work in 9.4 and 9.4 and 2.1