notes toward a minor crossing
one day
I will tell you in music
what I mean
and show
by the curve
of my bowed back
this violin
and wait
while you remember
and say
by this instrument—
listen
I will show you
the sound a bird means
singing
above her heart
pounding
too fast
for you to follow
while alive
and I will say gently
try baby
and for a moment
you will
and you will
try baby
still alive
(meaning what?)
then
you will know
what I mean
enough
for us to leave
and be still again
& movement
all web
all weft, warp
all woven
in why whistling
underwind
& winding back as if to
tie you to its
waving
& away from
what you thought
known of who you
were
from one into another
at a crossing it is possible
to notice
how one emerging
from the echoic shadows
beyond the edges of this rush
is a creature
who understands
time through a listening
body & one
pauses now
sinew of back, legs, neck
all stretched to hear––
that graceful leap before
that pause, the pointed look
––one eye
& i witness
through shatterproof glass
blink
& then she moves
again the leaping
wave of herself
across road & into
an opposite dark.
