The music, don’t worry, carries away in a shopping basket,
Frozen peas for a pillow, cool and soft, warm and sweet.
Words and sounds decay through the air we breathe a dozen
Breaths per minute, inhale, exhale, difficult as the task it
Has become, to the point of exhaustion as we merely complete
A sentence, something we’ve done so thoughtlessly–those inch-
Long phrases never measuring up or down or any direction we
Let our subjects wander. Most years we never saw coming until
Here upon us, life’s bellows, or billows, squeezed Smitty’s
Little accordion. One note only hissing at wood, a ship, a tree.
The wind fills our solidly trimmed sails, fade in the sun, still,
Placid as a mirror you can hold like that pillow. Split peas
Softening with age, so much younger than friends we forget
As they have forgotten us, little frozen spheres the flash
Of which is well thawed on the way home, green as the day
Pods ripped and spilled them, anonymous mass in conveyors of wet
Produce, boiled without tattoos, without arms, hoarded in a cache
Below instant zero, static until now, until the steam bouquet
Blooms against the ceiling. And this, baptism by water, total
Immersion, you know, is the best way to learn a new language,
Heated so that surface swirls curl back in waves without foam.
No games here. All these little balls. No games. A gravy mote
Around the starchy white castle, guards awaiting the changes,
Press their forks into the road as lovers lying awake at home.