207. Peggy Lee Marvin Hamlisch

muffled distaff vinyl
scratches and stylus
against the throat to
catch a moving voice
running dull & dumb
toward forgetting &
the leaving it behind

piston, piston, piston
motion and moment
what goes through &
goes into what must
go through and into
piston process potion

syringed into a jazzy
whiteness cumulous
in general outline of
and skin slipping to
white & the latticed
shadow between the
sound of jazz as life
and jazz drained of
the blood of a living

if friddle were word
she played her voice
around then he was
an actor like soldier
like gunman like an
errant cowboy given
away to gruffness &
rough & guttural in
an approximation of
a way of speaking as
the personality that
hollows out the chest

the eyes squeezed to
shut out the streams
of light from sun and
humans flattened on
strips of thin plastic,
bright lights shining
through & revealing
the limits of skin and
hair & small releases
of light from inside a
dark well of every eye
even the single glossy
eye of a camera stare

if every film requires
light flowing through
it can’t be left to eyes
alone but must sing a
music to replace eyes’
dominance with that
irreducible sense of a
sound to guide us by
our ears to the truest
meaning of movement
and moment of those
flat beings, completed
with feeling such that
a flat light could wake
it especially with a bit
of music pointing back
toward solid, rounded
forms of speaking out

might be that a music
could fill a space even
the space of a kitchen
with generous, plump
sounds, and might be
I should have written
you a letter about food
or one about the taste
a tongue might ask of
food or those who cook
our meals into shapes
of flavor, deep enough
that we remember how
we came to seem alive