Five-oh-seven in the morning; the neighbors'
earlier drunken garage chatter calmed to an ebbing tinker
that only raises its pitch in the moments it remembers
what it used to be,
and that it is not supposed to die;

not like this, not for sleep,
not for tomorrow;

to remember is not the object
either; after a certain point
memory is not in the cards and the object
is a point,
a moment,
swimming around in the calming waters of the
earlier drunken garage chatter,
later left in the dark
with the spilled ashtray
and melted conversations