Dear Best Buy Employee,
I guess this could be an apology letter,
of sorts, because I’m sorry, I really am,
for stroking those sound bars into their own
sonic, semi-erotic oblivion. Giggling all the way
to the flat screens and pressing their power
buttons in pivot so that all your beats pills screamed
yes, they are still in stock. Did you know
that everything in your store can be taught
to speak with one another? Even those new
refrigerators have their own conversations
when you open them up. I could lie to you,
tell you I wanted to find out if the surround sound
really could blanket us, fill this Best Buy to the rim
with noise. With that kind of silence. I could tell you
how I used to sustain every key on the organ
setting of my keyboard and, sometime later,
I could tell you how I’d let go. I’ve heard
that, as a teen, my mother had a bird whose song
was so beautiful it couldn’t bear to close
its beak. A sound you could understand, maybe.
I’ve heard she lost sleep. I’ve heard, specifically,
that my mother’s bird shit the cage one day
until it fell from its perch, wings spread, settling
much like a plastic bag on the highway, only
to be kicked up, something divine, to the undercarriage
of an eighteen-wheeler, heading straight
and directionless, not one of its tires ever leaving
the ground. But really, I’m sorry because
you: at an all-out sprint, neck turning
red the way it always has when you hurry and you:
dead-set on stopping those damned
machines, on finding the culprit, on finding me,
didn’t see her, turned toward me in disbelief,
gorgeous and smiling and comfortable in the light
of what I have just done, understanding
I’ve done none of this for you, Best Buy Employee,
but for her: who steps across the road, opening
her mouth to tell me there are no cars
on their way, right now. Nothing
coming toward us, at all.