Guitar clips the same bright shape and the drum puts a hard little step under it. The room is already narrow before anyone sings.

Wolf steps in on smokestack lightnin’. The vowel stretches until the words turn into signal, and the band still will not swell for him.

That first whoo goes up and out, then falls straight back into the short circuit. The cry sounds huge because the frame stays this spare.

Tell me baby. What’s the matter with you. Same post, fresh blows. Backing howls thicken the edge for a second without softening the road.

After a long hold on the repeating figure, the question comes back out of the same smoke. Where did you stay last night. Almost no harmonic release.

Stop your train. Let a poor boy ride. The groove has been rail work the whole time; now the lyric just names the motion, and the band still does not open.

Fare you well, never see you no more. Departure sung from inside the loop. The howls after it run longer than speech and keep riding the engine.

Who been here since I been gone. The line breaks and stutters, then tips toward another howl while the groove stays locked.

Late pressure loosens a little. Then the motor simply loses its hold, and the last sound falls into a short empty tail.