Listening to Andrew Bird's "Not a Robot, But a Ghost"

By Jamie Parsley

Whistles—
all the way home.

Again and again
the whistles

and howls and
all the cracked codes

and melting numbers
jumbling and falling

down through
whistles and bells.

Listen to the whistles.
They fall

through the floor.
Through the floor—

where you and I
like encrypted numbers

fall. This is
the hour—

it whistles.
And we

with our pushing pores
read the note pushed

beneath the door.
We know.

We hear the whistle
fall with us, whistling

as it falls
again and again

all the way home.