Thomas Edison loved a doll

with a tiny phonograph inside

because he made her speak.

Is there any other reason

to love a woman? Did she say

the ghost of my conception

 or something equally demure?   

It’s hard to be sure how he feels   

when he holds me, I fall apart. 

I’m projecting here. He didn’t feel   

her first transgression   

was in having no expression.  

René Descartes, too, traveled alone   

with a doll-in-a-box   

he called his daughter. Francine,

Francine… is it better to be silent   

and wait for everything   

we were promised? 

Or should we love them back,   

the way a train loves its destination,   

as if we have the machinery necessary for it?