Vending Machines at Night
After the photography of Eiji Ohashi, particularly "Roadside Lights, Kutchan-town/Hokkaido"

I think they talk to each other
in a language covered in snow.
The errant pros and cons
of one high school romance or another
told in muffled squeaks and blips.
Like the blind seeing colors,
these sentinels stand guard
over our desires: imitations
manufactured to resemble
actual people, real food. The devices
we need to hold our lives together
for a few more hours.
Or until the next machine
is created that can cure us all. 

—Andrew Gent

Andrew Gent lives in New Hampshire, His first book, [explicit lyrics], won the Miller Williams Poetry Prize in 2016. He can usually be found at his website and on Twitter.