A muffled chainsaw hums like an insect
water drips, insistently, like a clock beat

A door clicks open, exposing the siren
and sensual bass of rap, and then
slam!

Scattershot conversations

I told her we’d see tonight

When is it…you’re not hungry?
Huh?

Sometimes I wonder about him,
you know, what his intentions are

Rumbling Septa, menacingly hissing to a stop
The thumping grind of car wheels,
bumbumbumthudumpbumbumbum
The whizzing whir of what must be a skateboard
and suddenly my heater wheezes to life

Somewhere surrounding me, the drum beat
of stairs being climbed
and the hushed melodrama of daytime television

Loud thunking and creaking above me
(Again? During the day? Really?)

What I want to hear is what I have not heard
in a very long time:
the sonorous rustle of skin against bed sheet,
a groggy sigh from a dream,
the echoing warmth of breath into a pillow,
a bone cracking in full stretch

Sounds of a body waking next to mine