Here are the things I hear presently, it is 6:45 a.m.: a barking dog—arf arf arf arf arf arf arf (kind of flutily); a helicopter, probably in a sharp tilt and tight circle over the 5; a gaggle of city birds doing their morning happy thing (ridiculous, considering their environment); the freeways' general roar(s); cars driving by on the other side of the building; the garage gate buzzing open; the periodic high whine of a transformer (?); sounds like waves, but I'm not near the ocean; a loud cricket; the gate crashing closed; the broom and dustbin of someone cleaning; my refrigerator; (it is the juxtaposition of those last two items that caused me to employ semicolons instead of commas, because I wanted to set off "cleaning, my refrigerator" a little more forcefully—no one ever cleans my refrigerator, not even with a comma in between!); an airplane; the Goldline gliding in from the Chinatown stop; a crow cawing (a sound I love, it makes me think of autumn); someone's phone ringing; the squeaky brakes of a large truck, and now the pointless beeping of its backing up. I've asked the question before, but I'll ask it again: When did we, as a species, become incapable of seeing gigantic animals (in this case, trucks) moving toward us, even if they're doing so backwards? We can see the big things coming! We can detect the motions of lumbering monsters, both with our eyes—miraculous, these eyes!—and ears (miraculous, these ears!), we don't need alarms to see them! The reason I am not writing something more interesting is because I did not marinate in my thoughts this morning, I got right to it, I woke up late, and I did not give myself time to ease my way into the life of the mind (such as it is), rather, I launched into pure reportage instead. By pure reportage, I do not mean pure reportage. I mean cataloging—the newt's tail of the poet's work. I am sorry if I have bored you. If it's any consolation, I have bored myself as well.