Salt in the Wire

Wind hit the line
Made it talk wrong

Telephone pole by the flood-bent road
Leaned one inch like an old back bowed
Crows on the crossarm
Still as pins
Black on the light where the fields thinned out

We used to say there was salt in the wire
Any time a voice came back dead-tired
Half of the word gone missing in heat
Half caught fire before it arrived

I was raised on almost
Rain that stalled
Checks that shrank
Crops that stalled
Men went quiet
Women kept moving
Nobody naming the cost at all

Deadpan flow with a dry hard edge
Hooks like fencewire over a ditch
Simple enough to stay in the head
Sharp enough still to leave a stitch

Salt in the wire
Salt in the wire
Say my name once
It comes back tired
Salt in the wire
Salt in the wire
Word hits the line
Then the line catches fire

Storefront peaches going soft in crates
Flyspeck glass and a hand-painted rate
Kid by the ice chest counting out coins
Like numbers alone could steady the day

Dog in the lot with burrs in its tail
White sun stuck on a rusted rail
Hope looked plain
Thin, not dead
Breathing just enough not to fail

I keep scraps
Voice cracks
Half-heard warnings
Weather facts
Let the loop run one groove too long
Sometimes truth needs a circle back

So I pull from the well that smells like silt
Sulfur, rope, old nails, guilt
Not for drama
For accuracy
For the sound things make right before they tilt

Salt in the wire
Salt in the wire
Say my name once
It comes back tired
Salt in the wire
Salt in the wire
Word hits the line
Then the line catches fire

Wind through wood
Low choir
No one talks clean
Salt in the wire