Soul Nocturne

All across America the soul gets up,

flinches in morning light, stumbles to the phone

to hear the same small child:

today I learned a new word, good-bye...

then spends the day with a dial tone in his ears,

a music unshakable as last night's image of angels

eating crumbs and the packed stadiums of long lost

loves

together at last, waving their silent white flags . . .

the music of angels trying to lose themselves

for just a little while-unfinished symphonies,

something last whistled from the unknown

soldier's mouth

right before they opened his tomb ...

a music of waiting there, believing

some single sound could describe it:

the settling of water in a cracked glass,

the hiss of a nail in floorboards