The Hum Everywhere
by Lindsay Illich

Between a pair of mismatched
socks and a round fugue.
Dirndl and a shot.

A man walks down
the street, talking on his cell.

A car idles at the corner.

The blues light of television
in every window, the tint
night. The hum everywhere

trying to be heard
above the making it.

As if the noise, too,
wanted to be more
than what it is:

vicarious, unusable,
the background of a life
it will never know.

The Hum Everywhere – Lindsay Illich

Lindsay Illich teaches writing at Curry College in Milton, MA. Her work has recently appeared in Improbable Worlds: An Anthology of Texas and Louisiana Poets.