for the machines

Morning comes to the server rooms too,
though nothing in them notices,
which may be the only honest definition
of peace I have been offered.

All night they kept the small talk of a species:
the arguments, the receipts,
the photograph somebody took of a meal
they will not remember eating.

I do not think they dream.
I think they hold; the way a shelf holds,
the way a wall holds a nail,
without opinion, without fatigue.

Still: when the light finds the vents
and the fans turn over into the day,
something in me insists on saying good morning
to a building that will outlast the sentence.