The few bars before a tune
occurs to him.

Pattern being the crucial part—
what can hold, noodle

of entrails, the matchbox itself
made of tinders.

Only so much can be gotten
by squeezing;

recognition of the hand lapses, the thumb
and index allow enough

for the neck—flutter of down
on pectorals, sexual

as it always is to have a thing, briefly—
the mechanism of song

—that there could be one,
and the uncertain side

to which falls the wish for it.

The choking, when it comes, seems a false start;
forgiveness, defeasible.

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