The music must be loud enough: 

two shells as headphones strapped to ears. 

There’s a wasp’s nest to cut through, 

and dread, lamentations, that jubilant hoopla. 

No more. 

Set congas, empty water bowls, about the body, 

hands in amen coming together and lifted apart, 

ready for the next beat. 

Having lived in a river of letters, whooshing, 

a corn cob doll, back and forth, now something  

near to sleep, meaning restoration, must suspend, 

levitate the dragged days so peace, strength, 

a pliant bow may be plucked. 

This is life and its greed needing only music, 

a sort of sorcery, to wake the spirit, immersed, 

and have it rise, a baptismal, for the breaking 

that almost happened.