The voices in the radio. They seeped
out from the Zenith’s woven thatch. They weren’t
the voice my sister heard. She’d fall asleep
before Lone Ranger. In altered dark I learned

to listen to the Three Invisibles:
Old Peg, Sam Crow, a wrangler named John Naught.
They fought for places on the windowsills,
not whispering, not worried they’d be caught.

Something or nothing, they had their sovereignty.
My sister slept beside a cotton hound
tattooed in autographs, her company,
but if he howled it was a private sound.

My Three told lies and swaggered visibly.

They lived inside the radio, not in me.