with his body but the minutes
don't stop. The smell of him mixed with creosote, exhaust--
There, on the ground, slipping through the minutes, trying to notch them. Like taking the same picture over and over, the spaces
in between sealed up--
Knocked hard enough to make the record skip
and change its music, setting the melody on its forward course again, circling and circling the center hole in the flat black disk.
And words, little words,
words too small for any hope or promise, not really soothing
but soothing nonetheless.