Maybe it’s the woodchuck
on his way across the deck
his claws click clicking

or the gray squirrel overhead
on the airing porch gathering
nuts and dropping them in rhythm.

Maybe it’s the downy
tapping on the maple’s
one dead arm.

Or the neighbor’s
garage door grinding out that tune
as it rises and falls,

another sound he can’t explain,
a rabbit caught at night out back,
the snapping of a chicken neck,

the music they call rock
as if an asteroid landed on the lawn
and spun itself thin, a compact disc,

gears out of tune, sound out of time
like railroad humming, passing cars,
clamber of Orion’s falling sword

through earth’s trees, lopping branches,
shouting Timber, stacking drumsticks,
notes piled outside star boy’s window