a sound

there was a sound i did not notice in the din
a moment when above voices
and noisome movement
and the scrape of wings
(the cochroach population must have known its name)
i heard but thought, mistook it for another thing.


i did not hear a change in amplitude around me
after everything was sucked like froth into a straw
was sucked like just so many bubbles, a croak was all
i heard and not a shift in pitch or any altered volume
after that, a croak
(or maybe i imagine and there was no sound it made,
perhaps it was the insects i recall).


it came and went, the sound i know was there
i'm thinking it could not have been the roaches twisting
in the wall alone, no, they heard it too (the way we start
and move our feet in reassuring ways when trains have passed).
it was everything, that sound:
the air, the sky, the clouds reflected in the sign
above the hobby shop, the shop, the sign, the people
at the curb, the street, the town.


it is absurd to think that everything could curl
within a straw, be sucked at all
yet just like breath is passing out your teeth to dry your lips
reminds you of the nose you used to bring it down
(like that)
i see the bugs heard me inhale the world.