Control has been candied and exchanged

So many times it feels like the night

Of the day, a troubled ride through

A beginning whose motor announces

It's still the mild guardian

Of a human bird we don't yet hear.

She needs no protection nor exists

Except as a set of performances,

Notes mistaken for an identity

In sequence, much as we take quiet

Sounds to be an index of their distance

From the only place that matters.

This is not description but paraphrase

The voice does as contradictions,

New but old, certainly uncertain

About the decision to wear white

Though it's long after Labor Day.

In fact it's that other day in September

Never fully over inside the strings,

And this isn't time, more like the world

Premiere of an anticipation

Of an accompaniment that isn't

Paraphrase so much as the last

Chance at exhausted debut.