The Receiver

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THE RECEIVER


Not much can tune her hair 

these days, so we aim it upwards

like antenna. Wound tight and tilted, 


they orbit the house like a satellite

searching for a signal, and ad hoc 

as they are they seem to work, 


because some days, somewhere between

her cooking on the kitchen set and reading

a book upside down, I pick up 


a transmission. It suddenly cuts 

in, faint and with plenty of static

but just clear enough to catch snippets


of a song I can never name but know

I’ve heard before. And then it goes

as quickly as it came, and I’m left again


with the silence to marvel at how now and then 

these local receptors can intercept 

a frequency from somewhere behind the stars. 

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