The Conduits

[Verse 1]
The Popek's Bakery sign is flickering again
down Joseph Campau Avenue on a humid August Tuesday.
You’re calling from the porch step, I can hear the evening train,
and the smell of hot transformers drifts up from the alley to me.

[Chorus]
We talk around the stress-fractures, the static on the wire,
like we're reading off two different blueprints for the fire.
A memory of home built on hollow ground,
and the quiet is the loudest goddamn sound.

[Verse 2]
You said, "The foundation's settling, the kitchen floor has bent,"
while I was watching condo cranes that never seem to end.
You're patching up the load-bearing walls of consequence,
and I'm just drafting elegies and calling it art for rent.

[Chorus]
We talk around the stress-fractures, the static on the wire,
like we're reading off two different blueprints for the fire.
A memory of home built on hollow ground,
and the quiet is the loudest goddamn sound.

[Bridge]
And in the spaces, the empty air between the words,
I hear the Polish consonants I've lost now in thirds.

[Outro]
The dial tone’s a cantilever
hanging in the Chicago air.