From “Clangings”

I hear the dinner plates gossip

Mom collected to a hundred.

My friends say get on board,

but I’m not bored. Dad’s a nap



lying by the fire. That’s why

when radios broadcast news,

news broadcast from radios

gives air to my kinship, Dickey,



who says he’d go dead if ever

I discovered him to them.

I took care, then, the last time

bedrooms banged, to tape over



the outlets, swipe the prints

off DVDs, weep up the tea

stains where once was coffee.

Not one seep from him since.



What, you wander, do I mean?

Except for slinging my songs

wayward home, how do things

in people go? is what I mean.