The pitch and the sopor bells

portraits of dulcimers and cantor signing wells
letters of Elbrus slopes, downscapes
letting women and children out first
and then allowing the fire to carry on
songbirds and wood panels, carrying-on

wells of heptagonal instruments, subsiding
like rain pallets under trailings of masks
signing portraits where no sound did fall,
but the illusion of the task is the same
sopor bells and blackened sky retreats;
the home is the verbiage of tall man-of-war birds
tuned to the pitch of obtrusive, peeling knots of silence