I can’t see you, you’re up a ways.
You suggested the balcony was as good as the floor seats.
So can you see the conductor’s arms? Waving 1, 2 3,
fingers against maple and spruce and gums,
pianissimo first, a baby’s first hum,
then let the cellos join, and then the drums,
a glissando of laughter, higher and higher
now the trumpets, the clarinet, and at last the choir.
Now we’re a floating orchestra,
flower petals raining from the ceiling.
What a funny kind of feeling.
What a funny kind of numb.
Cymbals and sax and powdery lace,
the pit floods with tea rose lemonade we can taste,
it’s sweet and it’s sour, the violins scream with power,
until strings snap and wood cracks, a disorderly pace,
there’s death dripping down the neck of the bass,
the conductor has lost the baton and fled,
but somehow you still hear the howls in your head,
the violists all drop their mahogany bows,
then a crash, a beat — the curtain close.
The first time I thought I did too much.
The first time I thought I did too much.
