A freight train blows its hard horn (bright horn?) this morning.

I live in the suburbs and I can hear it — me and my cat.

There are tracks running through this town, and from time to time, rail crossings you might encounter unexpectedly, where you have to sit at the red light and wait for the endless line of rail cars.

The standard motor vehicles make just as much noise, anyway. I hear them like static on the receiving end of a phone. Not to mention their smoke.

Then there’s my retired neighbor with his generator that he uses for his pressure washer to clean his yard, where he also has a hot tub, along with a fluorescent blue bug zapper and a flatscreen, as well as a wife who does Zumba.

Dark liquid, as if derived from near Earth’s core. Bitter, hard-hitting high notes, lingering long after, like an aroma carried by smoke.

Sugar-coated almonds at a wedding. You bury the bride in her white dress. While they are nice to look at, you cannot bite on pearls. For instance, I do not need to see an ivory piano on which Mozart played. Or if the piano were situated in a jewelry box, raised up as if on a dais, the otherwise dreamy notes would sound contorted, as if reflected in a funhouse mirror.