Alarm Without Source

2 AM and it's not the fire truck,

not the ambulance with its routine wail,

not the police. I know these.

I've catalogued them, the way some people

collect birds. This one arrives

on a frequency I have no name for.

It doesn't pulse. It holds.

I reach for my phone in the dark,

scroll through the emergency app

like it might explain what's

demanding my attention at this hour.

Nothing. The city official report

stays blank. My neighbor's light

goes dark again. They know too,

maybe, or they're better at

letting it pass through them,

letting it not matter.

I lie here, ears open,

running through every siren I've ever heard,

trying to fit this one into

that taxonomy, and it won't fit.

It keeps not fitting.