I always thought of this line as a description of Edith's physical state after taking the drugs that the Kingpin has just given her. She seems to be experiencing a faster heartbeat and perhaps a headache. She is experiencing great sensitivity to noise: a plane in the rain is humming; bars in her head beating frantic; wires in the wall are humming. The lines "tilts their tired faces gently to the spoon" and "snowblind" suggest they've just taken heroin. Joni also uses the word "bars" in "A Chair in the Sky": "The rain slammed hard as bars ..." Jim
