'Taint What You Do

When the muttering starts in the street, the word aubade

Is not in its vocabulary, though freight trains drum their cargo

Of copper wire and emptiness over the river bridge

Straight for the heart of the sun. Some of its timbre is friction,

Wind against brick, iron against asphalt, old rain

Making its way through pipe; some of it is chemical—

Carbon bonding with oxygen, wood and stone breaking down;

Some is irreducible, like dark matter, like the reason

This old man slumps on a rotting stoop, counting

The nickels in his hand and moaning. Morning

Refuses to hear him. Morning has its own game going

And stops at nothing, cruising crosstown to the Horizon Club

In a slick limo, almost silent, anxious to make the drop.