*

Like a warden at the evening meal

I body count :these stars

have something to hide—only at night

my phonograph again that Angel Eyes

as the maze engraved in a tire

filters each nail till the sting

circles higher and higher, ropes dangling.

All these knots. The set

healing on my floor, trussed

taped, glued, its top caked open

—what’s to escape :that song

is on its third engine.

I’m used to my room going black

spin blind as if the fuse

blew itself up taking the sky with it

and I count without looking up

one, and wait. It takes a while.

But at least who else, what else, how else

one is there. I never reach two, the sun

plunges once its black hood is untied

and lights everywhere broken, my Angel Eyes

Angel Eyes, Angel Eyes reeling

snarled :its treads worn down

to almost a whisper.

I can’t even see the pieces.

Escape from what!

The claw I thought would puncture

licks the wound, singing, singing :Angel Eyes

prefers its blindness

—even I wait in the trenches

in the cliffs falling from her mouth

from the sky not yet worn through

from the cone

coiling tighter and tighter above its prey

its road on a map

on a song dead weight :the stillness

steadied by something hid

that outnumbers her voice, one

and Angel Eyes.