a student saxophone on the air
keeps tempo with traffic on the overpass

each evening is its own reckoning —
have enough of them,  a body will forget its name


then remember it again  like an old friend
who lost his watch while visiting for supper

there are no causalities at the bottom of the glass of milk

after so many words, names of things
syllables eventually break down to minor scales

after a fashion, the body dissipates into the age after fathers

this song is not the record of the reckoning
but the space between notes.