a.m. radio

There is a chorus of voices, and I am hunting ten at a time. This is the a.m. dial: amplitude modulation.

Voices from Tennessee, Virginia, New York, leaving their sphere of influence, I feel like a tourist: traffic on the George Washington Bridge, tires for sale in Nashville, the West Virginia Mountaineers down seven.

I am closer to home, a spy intercepting enemy transmissions, static under the bridge.

In the gaps between states, not the pure static of nothing but a rather full rooms where each conversation in trying to rise above the din. There are righteous voices in mono, a pulpit with a broken speaker, the Americana of original sound.

“At last,” Etta begins I can’t tell if it is the warmth of her soul or the revolutions per minute. Headlights turn and the trees begin to block my way home.