Fear of Dying to the Wrong Song

From The Clichéist, published by Nightwood Editions in 2005. This poem also appeared in Fist of the Spider Woman, an anthology published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2009.

There is no such thing as slowing this down.
You are on your way to a day you planned
to spend alone. You now know only that
you are alive in the taxicab, seconds before it pours
itself around a pole. You hear the prayer
of the driver, a woman yelling through the inch
of your opened window, and then neither. Just
the song coming softly through the system.
And it is not the kind of song that makes you
hang your head in your hands, give up, not
the gravelled voice of a poisoned smoker
about to outlive you, or a hymn that lets
you go. It is the soundtrack of a hand
on your back, the way your mother hums
when she picks up the telephone. You think
of it as you clamour to the curb, as you
prop yourself against the collapsed salt box.
You can still hear the strings. Kissed
on the face by a leaf you cannot bother
to remove it. You know when the song
picks up. You picture the cello being
crushed between the knees, the pianist
pedalling in coal black shoes, the femur
of the flute in the flautist’s lap, shining, geared.
There is the taste of that steel on your lips. You
inhale to make any sort of sound. You almost
place your mouth there and breathe.