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T. R. HUMMER | For Dancers Only
'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. 
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