From The Clichéist, published by Nightwood Editions in 2005. This poem also appeared in Fist of the Spider Woman, an anthology published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2009.

There is no such thing as slowing this down.

You are on your way to a day you planned

to spend alone. You now know only that

you are alive in the taxicab, seconds before it pours

itself around a pole. You hear the prayer

of the driver, a woman yelling through the inch

of your opened window, and then neither. Just

the song coming softly through the system.

And it is not the kind of song that makes you

hang your head in your hands, give up, not

the gravelled voice of a poisoned smoker

about to outlive you, or a hymn that lets

you go. It is the soundtrack of a hand

on your back, the way your mother hums

when she picks up the telephone. You think

of it as you clamour to the curb, as you

prop yourself against the collapsed salt box.

You can still hear the strings. Kissed

on the face by a leaf you cannot bother

to remove it. You know when the song

picks up. You picture the cello being

crushed between the knees, the pianist

pedalling in coal black shoes, the femur

of the flute in the flautist’s lap, shining, geared.

There is the taste of that steel on your lips. You

inhale to make any sort of sound. You almost

place your mouth there and breathe.