AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS ADAGIO FOR VIOLIN AND VIOLA
(for Hilary Hahn)
Not unlike the way
some fingers might
crave a certain sound
as they slide
down a neck
to bend a pitch—
a prayer of uncertainty
may also seek
to merge the shapes
of two citrus bodies—
say a blood or
navel orange—
within the silence
of a still life.
And yet not
a long island sound
connecting two bodies
of water under
a duvet of darkness
or not signed waves
from red carnation lips
making the troubled leaps
of a ghazal into the sea
of a secret which
—when you toss
your hair that way—
seems to ripple like
what in lesser light
could be called
—for now—
abandon.
But maybe
merge like fingers
on taut strings—
while orange petals
warm the air
above the wisp
of a wick—
as if our two
curving bodies
seek to share a note
—or anything
hand drawn—
that may
inscribe us closer
to a Trouble Clef
where a silkening
might blend us
into one long scarf
of sigh—almost pianissimo
as freshly cut violets—
or perhaps intends
to reach beneath
a bare strip of thigh
that now ripples
with the blood
or navel orange’s
silent ache—
as if only until dawn,
as if only until two petals
of chrysanthemum
try to rise or fall or become
a brush of red incarnate
on an inch of open neck.
