Revision!

His voice was once a silver trumpet -
all the pride of the shining band
was in his air song,
was in his dust stomp.

All gone to the mice,
to the blues, now, to Georgian heat
on the killing room floor.

The clock in his cab says
11:15 in the dazzling afternoon.
It says that. Though it is 9pm and raining.
It lies like that. All spelled out clear, in red digital dots.
Like the constellations in city lights this night,
that spell out line drawings
of the mythical heroes of America:

Wave-riding cowboys, freight-hopping vagabonds,
with bullets to spare.

This is not a voice to be won or lost, he thinks.
No, it is only to be dampened, to be moldy, a loaf of bread
on the sidewalk this night. It is only
to thin out like an old flannel nightgown,
to scratch last hollers to the moon.