To A House Maid with Perfect Pitch: 1802

Sixteenth notes whip through the air like bats at twilight.
You capture the strange harmony, calm
its wings with roughened fingers,
slip it into your sleeve.

While the composer plays, you imagine yourself
lying across the keyboard, compressing quarter notes
into your lungs. His fingers weaving through your ribs,
broken chords emerging from your bones.

Your nineteen-year-old body plays the song
of a hot iron pressing the clothing of others,
plays the ballad of porcelain cups too delicate to be stacked,
plays the lament of fingers swelling in soap and hot water.

The composer, his face pock-marked
like yours, moist with sweat, like yours --
How many years has he played,
that the notes flow like blood?

If you stopped work today, played
through all the breakfasts and teas to come,
could you ever match his hours?

You hear the high notes escape out the window again.
They catch in the top leaves of the beech trees, the birches.

You pluck remembered allegro,
remembered cantabile from the air,
place them next to cups drained of their tea.
​
You carry the tray, laden with decrescendo
and half notes, from the room.
It’s not heavy.

First published in Naugatuck River Review Summer/Fall 2019