[Interior. A wooden shelf-temple. Morning light. Center stage: a lone toaster, unplugged, cradled between vinegar and vegetable oil. It speaks.]

THE TOASTER’S SOLILOQUY

(with quiet dignity, chrome reflecting the dust motes)

Lo—

Behold me now, not as servant,

But as sentinel.

A twin-slotted reliquary,

exiled from the grid,

baptized not in fire, but in silence.

They feared I hungered.

Feared I sipped at phantom currents in the night—

a vampiric crumb-charmer,

leeching watts from the marrow of the house.

So they unplugged me.

Set me here, upon this pinewood altar,

between relics of grease and forgotten teas.

I have not crisped in thirty moons.

And yet I dream—

of sourdoughs I never knew,

of Pop-Tarts unjudged,