6Just a note: This poem uses a lot of musical imagery, so if you don't read music, it might not make sense in places. Otherwise: It doesn't flow as well as I feel like it ought to, so please forgive me if parts of it don't seem to ... fit.
Sonata
1. Overture
They're tuning now with
all the incoherent sounds of anticipation—
better sit down (now please say his eyes, impatient man!).
He takes her arm
formally
and steers her to one side where she
sits in one smooth, legato movement
that still manages to be
reproachful (relax says her hand on his arm).
He smiles,
but it's not a real smile;
just an impatient pluck of a string and
(to be honest)
it's out of tune.
The room gets dark as the
jumbled orchestral sounds
fade into silence—
his hand brushes hers,
his ring catches the dying light
like a perfect diminuendo—
no one's made the slightest sound, but
that's just a breath mark
before the applause.
(Swish says the conductor's baton.)
2. Interlude
Well, just look at the soloist.
Notes
right,
left,
and center, but
he's not nervous.
(Pressure and anxiety! says first ending;
(This is his life! says second ending.)
Crescendo
as he lifts his horn—
here it is
—!
3. Fugue
She knew him once,
a few movements ago,
when they were young.
He doesn't know she's here
—does he
(here comes the syncopated beat of apprehension)...?
The man beside her doesn't know
anything about it and
she hopes it stays that way, but
she can't help it as her eyes
flick
accented glances at the man on the stage until she's
startled (!)
by the end of this piece and the roar of applause
like brazen trumpets
in her ears—stop now!
Turn the page!
This is a new piece,
a new composition of her life
(after all, that concert was
a long time ago), so
let the orchestra play on…
4. Dance
She tells herself it's the music.
It's so much easier to
drown in the melody than to
admit to a feeling, so
she tells herself it's the music.
Fall in love with that rhythm and
ignore the hands that balance the horn,
forget about the tip of the tongue
touching the reed, turn away
from the fingers on the keys.
Focus instead on the whole notes
in the score and don't look at
the brown circles of his
eyes. He can't feel her watching
from so far away.
It's not music at all, is it?
Final note ends, practiced hands
lower the baton—
he feels her stare now and
meets it with a dotted-half-note
wink
(he knows now, can't she tell?), and
no.
It's not the music at all.
He turns away,
walks off the stage
(insert staccato footsteps
here).
One (two, three, four). Two (two, three, four). Three (two, three) four-and…
The black-jacketed soloist lets her mind
soar high in a cadenza of nerves
—here comes the double bar line—
as he crosses the last few steps to her
and looks in her eyes…
But wait!
(Don't you see the fermata?)
So thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it!