The first were made as ornaments. A mud disk, spun until it buzzed.

Then, a method of adherence. This to that, a coat closed tight against the wind.


Bone, shell, and vegetable ivory; knobs of knotted rope.

To be tight in the right places; to suggest their own undoing.


Some, containing tiny iron needles pointing north to guide in war.

Or punched from the mother of pearl dragged up in Muscatine,


stripped of meat in chemical baths, workers paid by the blank

until the strike and town-wide riot. Before the ubiquitous toggle,


a simple switch. Then affixed to lettered slugs. Then digits and a circuit.

A keypad and cash register. Pressing and depressing.


Color coded to avoid grave error. A badge of counter-culture.

Then mass produced in plastic. 50,000 migrant workers, slap-bang


in the middle of nowhere. A thing that can be pressed toward irritation.

Or with quotation marks to emphasize the consequence.


To give illusory control at crosswalks and office thermostats.

To drop the mustard gas and then to fire the Tomahawks.


To begin and end the sanctions. To dial and to hang. To eject

or power on. Pause and rewind. And then a flat graphic. A coded event.


A box with a thin gray shadow. To login, reset, delete. To give consent.

Click submit. Click to like. To enter the site. To go back home.


Do you want to stay on this page? Do you want to leave without finishing? No,

Sometimes I wish to unknow North. Sometimes I don&rsquo;t want to be a form


so easily undone.


An Abridged History of Buttons

Body Animal Time


&nbsp;


tonight then sunrise

now noon yesterday

late dawn daily

future evening later

yesterday again sunset


&nbsp;


&nbsp;


&nbsp;


Vegetable Color Questions


&nbsp;


idea never must

be hot also tidy

save God a little

sure just usually

need before begin


&nbsp;


&nbsp;


&nbsp;


Shopping People Function


&nbsp;


if here the they

their this of same

those oh yet

prefer everything off

go put on your from


Body Animal Time

Finally I am feeling the soft cramps of menstruation



Another red start



Another spreadsheet where every cell is a day containing local weather



It adds up to a project



What about a war that only lasts five hours?



Still the pixels green and die



Still I navigate to objectsobjectsobjects.com



In 8 th grade geometry I learned to hate the sound of trace emerging from beneath my teacher&rsquo;s mustache



A wobbly copy of a circle



I am still interested in simulation



In trying to understand a thing by recreating it in small



This epidemic isn&rsquo;t real, I tell my students as I use an eyedropper to indicate who is diseased



They hold their plastic cups out toward me and the ones containing water laced with soda ash turn vivid fuchsia and they scream



Well, terror is infectious, too



My final project, I decide, will be planting



I dreamt of wildflowers again



The bird said, if I seize you I will seize you and will squeeze you till you squirt



Well, not actually, but that&rsquo;s a trick to easily identify this bird by name



The warbling vireo, a tiny songbird



I identified the bird using a video that captured the sound of the camera zooming in to find the bird, metal against metal, singing krrrrrrrr



The river thrilled me, I would tell you



This thing runs all day, I said



Sometimes it feels it isn&rsquo;t me who&rsquo;s speaking when I speak



Well, I am my own personal stranger



My own personal jerk emails me to say that videographer seems reductive



and &ldquo;idk what happened but it happened&rdquo;



and that he &ldquo;like(d) having me as a friend&rdquo;



and signed off *fart noise*



which is the part that made me sad, that asterisk jacket



I read that song diversity predicts the viability of fragmented bird populations



Whether they will live in the face of widespread anthropogenic habitat destruction



Basically the birds aren&rsquo;t learning songs the way they used to



And they&rsquo;re dying



A bird&rsquo;s birdsong is its species language, special



I want this in this poem though it is already a poem



The birds, I mean; the singing



I learned to hide my body when I was young



How to be a highway and rest stop and dirt road and all-at-once



I believe that recreation is dangerous



As evidence: The Oregon Trail, developed as an educational computer game



As evidence: my childhood home in Indian Hills



As evidence: my faithful daily pop-up, telling me to update to macOS Mojave



As evidence: in 4 th grade I made mastaw for Heritage Day and watched as everyone spit it out



I hadn&rsquo;t known until that day how sour yogurt is



Whose idea was it to hold a Heritage Day?



Well, I&rsquo;ve taught and failed children too



Sometimes italics really sting



In Kurdish mastaw means yogurt-water



Mast is yogurt, aw is water, and together they mean exactly what they mean



My mother called to say she is officially a master naturalist



She earned her certificate by weighing native birds



In the hand, she said, the body of a bird feels mostly empty



My own hands are dense and mechanically healing



How much can a project contain?



Well, I dreamt of wildflowers again



I dreamt I roamed the field and scattered a crafted mix from a bag labeled fleurs sauvages



What makes a flower wild?



Not my hand that casts its seed in soil and says, now you can grow



But maybe flowers can refuse domestication



Can grow wild, again, all on their own


Object Project

it was red when I woke, or yellow


who was I to try to name the color?


it felt cruel, the way it obscured the mountains


something was wrong with the light


something was wrong with the language


I looked for a face but found a dead other


so slunk back into my body


my resolute cactus, in an act of duplication


look, I wanted to say, but it was gone


the newest lobe curves toward the window


deterring teeth like I might bite it


unaware of its own uselessness, the dinar stacked beside it


minted with a cheerful palm


belonging only to the isle of depreciated objects


typing&hellip;


it&rsquo;s December and the blades of grass have scissored up the heartache


so receipts must be everywhere waiting for rain


I hunger for the tender of the ping


my fly loves it when I&rsquo;m home


I say hi with a rolled book of songs


I dreamt in the new language, but couldn&rsquo;t understand it





I took the glaze-flecked chip out of the trench


I licked it with my light and made it whole


Tracy Fuad

An Abridged History of Buttons

Body Animal Time

Object Project

The Pith of Every Language Is a Rift

Tracy Fuad

about:blank

An Abridged History of Buttons

Body Animal Time

Object Project

The Pith of Every Language Is a Rift