Nineteen years of broadcasts from the roof above our front door
that still has a wreath left over from Christmas but 
is really waiting for a Star of David.

I know it was impractical to dedicate 
my life to the airwaves. I never said
radio was popular or practical but
I knew very early on that I was
designed to be a radio show host.
I found I was chronically being asked
for updates on traffic even when I 
was sandbox-sized-- I knew
it had to be something
inconvenient because it was something
that parents complained about 
from kitchen tables and counter tops--  
I responded that the cicadas were loud outside my
window that night and that cicadas only come out
after thirteen years of living in the 
soils as nymphs so they didn't know
how to harmonize well with other 
creatures. They sing too loud
and I felt bad to tell them
that I was trying to sleep and not
think about stop lights and the way
car horns sound when they're angry
-- I invited the cicadas as guests 
on the perpetual broadcast I hosted 
criss-cross applesauce from the
carpeted floor of a bed room with
two bunk beds that were somehow the 
entire rain forest canopy.
The cicadas politely declined my invitation
and yet felt the need to call in
to request some old 80s tune
that no one knew. I played it anyway
and it reminded me of my father.
I don't get many callers even
when I sit in my favorite spot
perched on the crumbly shingles
of the roof above the front door in Kutztown.
I don't live there anymore and I only
call it home when I'm sleepy and thinking
about banana bread or rainy porches.
I sit there with a coffee mug and the
microphone and sometimes I don't even need
to plug it in for the radio waves
to ripple into the farthest reaches
of the cracked-asphalt roads--
underneath them is where the cicadas 
listen and chatter about the ironies
of human politics--
I can see each word I speak
pulse in the startled lip-hair
of the wheat. 
I'll admit I'm mostly a radio 
host for a continued program about my own
imperfections spelled out in the 
coffee-bean grains at the bottom 
of the mug I hold like another elbow--
I tell the cicadas about my knees and 
the way my hips widen at dusk
when I feel like I've only ever 
talked into an unplugged microphone.
If there were a caller I wouldn't pick up--
We all need to be alone sometimes 
to remember that ache that it is to be human.
The secret is that you have a radio show
too-- only you might not have a microphone
or a roof to sit on that reminds you
of all the homes you have collected--
give me your channel and I swear one of
these nights I'll just listen. I won't call
in-- I know you just want someone to
listen to you and your unplugged microphone 
but I might request and 80s song 
neither of us have heard before
just to remind ourselves that everyone
if beautifully together
and alone between airwaves.