The sound is a car passing on the street. Four tires, that’s what makes the sound. Rubber on road. The going-going-somewhere sound. The sound of not staying. A dog barks. A café opens. A bank intercom talks to a car. At the stoplight down the hill, the car passes through. What then? It sounds like a car passing through a mirror. All the world is on the other side. A squirrel squirrels across copper chimes passing into music it didn’t know it could make. A pencil scratches something down it did not intend. November light is making all this happen. Never mind language.

Jeanie Tomasko is a poet and artist enjoying retirement after a long nursing career. She and her husband, Steve, divide their time between Middleton and a county up north with no stoplights. Her most recent book of poetry/story is The Beginning of the Account of the Reading Fox in the Night (Bottlecap Press).