Hotel Point

"A robin in a shabby maple, not tippy-top, though topped up enough, and slurring its burr-edged vocables--cheerio, cheerio--and then that slight wincing sound that somehow reminds me of a reed being split with a pocketknife, or a razor. Thinking, walking the C-dog, of how rarely the moon, stars, catalpa, the standing pale tapers of the false magnolia about to bloom (messily), shedding its pretense of containment and poise--all that--how rarely it "gets in" these scribbles of late. As if the brainpan grew tarnish'd with mere looking."