Our First Buffalo House

Our First Buffalo House

Trying to sleep the first night in our house,
I heard steaming and spitting sounds
from the Windshield Wiper plant behind us across Main Street
as the factory wheezed out a clanking cycle
like the crescendo of Harry Partch’s Bloboy,
its antique auto horn
blaring through the organ pipes.

Dissonant sounds embraced me,
clanging up and down microtonal scales
bringing an insistent, penetrating message
of welcome to this new, old house
amid the noises of mid-city Buffalo,
oh Buffalo, Buffalo,
my Windshield Wiper Factory, Buffalo.