Babble

William Kloefkorn

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If I can learn to think of everything as music
maybe what once upon a time was babble
I’ll hear as song,

what once upon a time was screech
I’ll recognize as a virtuoso singing—my
father, say, whose throat

an instant before the sot at the wheel
of a one-eyed Chevy delivered
him into silence

must surely have released what I’ll hear
as music, wham and bam as
counterpoints, squeal

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