In a tongue-snap sky, waxwings unspool over the plains. He was a whisper, she was Nebraska. Her hands pepperweed, pebble, pearl, pearl, so tone-smooth. Her mouth speaks, a red canary to a dime cigar. Spittle sheen. There are worse things than being a pretty Catholic girl without any guilt. She gives over to the music, embracing the Phoenician sailor and swearing by the cinema syndrome whereby prisoners sashay, recording songs into emerald sackcloths. Under the ostinato, under the train's rustle, she goes down. With her topaz neck and her bestiary lure. With her coloratura, her vixen gene, she goes down. Into the musk and hum and howl. O lady of the bossa nova. O girl born of semaphores. Into the moss and phosphorous. Into the salt marsh and subjunctive silence. With currants in her mouth, a yellow scarf around her neck, she goes.