Suddenly, your Facebook posts are lit up like the teachings
of Saint Francis or a birthday card from a four-year-old:
"I thought I'd post this song for my beautiful son Phillip,
on account he is an Arlo fan and a blessing," words
clear as rain, which up till now required beer and speed,
gentle words, unlike the ones I'm tempted to unleash
on my neighbor Yar (that's right, Ray backwards)
who on this sunny day is blasting his favorite death metal.
The music pounds and pulses through his flimsy walls,
across the yard and into my graying temples like the very
death of silence, something I love, something I am good at,
not only choking back my words but tuning out what others
have to say, John Doe, for instance. Earlier I was listening
to his song about a couple in the Mojave Desert
and soon was watching a movie in the familiar darkness
of my head. There was a only man in a small, spare home
by a two-lane highway. Dusk. He was at the table,
thinking, not eating supper, shifting his own gears,
wanting the woman, hating the woman, wanting her, and watching
the shadows fall, listening to the traffic and feeling the world
move away. But Duncan, what a bummer ending
when I leave mid-picture without telling him I love him.