High Frequency

The refrigerator is humming a low, steady flat,

a mechanical growl in the dark of the room.

But my head is busy with something besides that,

a thin silver needle piercing the gloom.

It’s the ghost of the bass, the scream of the lead,

now flattened to one long, unwavering wire.

I’m standing here filling a glass, and instead

of the water, I hear the leftover fire.

It’s a sharp kind of silence that won't let me be,

a pitch that’s too high for the world to sustain.

It’s just the refrigerator, the faucet, and me,

and this one electric nerve singing in my brain.