a train whistle smudges the air, the mood-

sewn, sinus-swoln bowels of a spit valve
cleared, all angst and grog, all the
errant applause of but
backs cracked
having been 
double-booked maybe for
what was the same small job in dream
or sleep stuck groping to tune or attune to the
trembling tune of some slurring machine; a
cobweb throbbed to a silvery string of un-
sightly smoke struck stiff, bent tracing but
butterfly peas in the petering darkness, lark-
spur sawing the sky into cross-eyed sunrise
sighing, as all of our double-exposures,
wheezing egos, seize in the self-
same stream of seamless life, the
oboe’s bloated A blown into a glass-
jawed murmuration of cays and train
cars, just for a moment, a dew-
dinged breath bent echoing
schillers and pearls and ormer’s
bones all swoln to the quivering
ribs of an endless marimba relenting—