From It’s Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems, published by Freehand Books in 2008.

(later)

A record is a palimpsest, an incestof sound. A drill-bit riding a carouselat midnight. The world’s most whoppinglayer cake. Not even the piggiestpiglets among you can ever eat your wayto the bottom. The backtrackshave backtracks. Sound behind soundbehind sound. Rave all you wantabout your good ears, they’ll neverreach her record’s acoustic back countryand what a blessing—Buddy Richis calling her a bitch, there, a limeybroad. That human thud you can’t hearis old Ida Metzger sailing onto Dusty’sroadster’s hood. Then there’s wretchedblubbering Mary O’Brien won’t thatbloody cow stop and a myriad of otherfrequencies you’re not picking up—the clanking of eyelashes finaleof teacups hitting the wall Martha Reeveshowling as sardines fly into herexquisite cocoa collarbones.You can’t hear any of this.