A friend called long distance stoned in Maynooth.
Said she was rooked. Said the air felt hacked from a wall.
An owl, if it was an owl, was shrieking like a tomcat.
She said something flew across gravestones, married
to her eyes. I heard but more imagined her words. Compared
the dark horizon to her raincoat, the distance to a short circuit
in her voice. There was silence, no voiceovers. A car door
wedged itself into radio waves. I imagined her lips moving,
her words inside the filaments of street lamps. College kids
slipped by. One of them propped a wallet on a gravestone.
She said a taxi drove by. She said it was turning around.
She said she could jump into the street and listen for brakes.
She asked if I could hear the brakes. I said I heard static.