Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
What Makes Men Great
Everyone knows the legend of Vaucanson’s duck,
who could eat, snuffle, preen,
and muck about in mud
though made entirely of wire and wood.
Without the shitting duck, Voltaire wrote,
what would remind us_
of the glory of France?_
Many great men make great mistakes,
as when von Kempelen’s chess player
was revealed a hoax. Even Napoleon
lost his bid and crossed himself
when the mechanized voice declared Checkmate,
from the Persian schah mat, the king is dead.
Ducked into the casket, under wooden arm
and never watching eye,
a succession of men
whose legs could be folded beneath them
like wings, including a midget
who spoke only German
and flung himself from the frozen prow of a ship
in winter crossing. The fishermen who found him
said their dinghies
were floating far from the shore.
They had to wade out to meet him.
Robin Ekiss is a former Stegner Fellow. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. She lives in San Francisco. (updated 4/2006)