Winds You Hear Before You Feel

sound like traffic on the interstate, open your mouth

and the smoke alarm cries wolf and everything

becomes a study in loss, just one more hotel soap

in a collection of hotel soaps.  Search the cushions

for change and find the thread that tethers

you to your body, taut but anchored there.

Stare at it, fidget your scars, aren't they better

than grease-marks?  Aren't they something?

So put your nose in the corner and count

out enough time for it to end.  Calm the alarm

with a dishrag, stop the scuttle of inanimates.

Clear the debris of your dinner and all the

dog-eared evidence.  Be static as a turbine,

photographed.  Be a tinge of bleach in the water.

Listen to the wind just wail and wail as it rips

through scales, an elbow scraped across keys.