I wish I could translate a whistle
into its bright yellow    bright yellow      bright yelling color
          my face from force of air,

but just the way a key’s copy never fits quite right,    no edge          
no sharp brass horizon happens in the same light.
          The problem centers here, around the chest’s fold-line,
esophagus radiates that sulphur-burn of waiting

          for this call that never happens                    so night
                    takes on resentment’s must—
                                        I have loosed you perhaps too much.
                                        To cut away

the plastic sheath from copper threads
          leaves a bendable shiny fray
                    of little use to me or machine, until
here, wires crossed induce a new current
                    in the exchange: a siren’s ammonia alarms!
alarms! Siren in the way it broke through the stillness,
          bell how it says ready, come.

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