We don't pay enough attention to our appliances. Their thoughts, their feelings. We take them for granted, and when they break down, we cast them aside like...well, like broken appliances, really.

Today, that attitude ends! 

This Poetry Friday, please settle back and enjoy New Brunswick poet Sue Sinclair's strange and original "The Refrigerator" (from Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada).

Then give your nearest appliance a hug.

The Refrigerator

It's life is longer
than you ever guessed;
it has travelled further
from what it knows. At night
it looks through the window
to its distant
relatives, the stars. They hum
to one another. Discuss
concepts of time
we don't understand.

When you come home
in the afternoon, it listens
to your troubles, the celibate
friend to whom you confide
everything, steadfast, the eternal
roommate whose sexless,
guileless life is comfort.

You never know how it longs
for intelligent conversation,
can't wait for you
to sleep so it can think
of something besides the lemon
hardening at the bottom
of the crisper. But it has learned
patience.

With a certain grace, a swimmer
waiting for the plunge. Solid,
rectangular, it faces the world
without regrets. It keeps
to itself, won't sleep
on the end of your bed,
but it watches. Reliable,
dependable. The habits
of an introvert: it knows when
to turn itself on and off.