The Art of Tetman Callis

distant whistle of the midnight freight
pulling into the rail yards downtown

burring rumbled whirr of freeway traffic
passing endlessly behind my house

murmuring voices of next-door neighbors
home from the show and not yet drunk

muffled clink of the spoon against
the bottom of my ice cream bowl

a cough from somewhere outside

a cricket from somewhere inside

the ticking clock on the bookshelf

(Published in High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (2012, Outpost 19); copyright 2012, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)