AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS ADAGIO FOR VIOLIN AND VIOLA
(for Hilary Hahn)
Not unlike the way
two fingers might
glide down a neck
seeking to elicit a pitch—
a held breath of prayer
may also seek to merge
two citrus bodies—
say a blood or
navel orange—
within the silence
of a still life.
And yet not
a long island sound
connecting these bodies
of water under
a duvet of darkness
and not signed waves
from carnation red lips
troubling the leaps
of a ghazal into the sea
of a secret which
—when you toss
your hair that way—
ripples towards
what in lesser light
could be called
—for now—
liquid abandon.
But maybe
merge as fingers
on taut strings—
while orange petals
trouble the air
above the wisp
of a wick—
as our two
curving bodies
seek the onset
of a note
—or anything
hand drawn—
that might
curl us closer
to a Trouble Clef
where our silkening
could peel into one
long scarf of sigh—
almost pianissimo
as freshly cut violets—
or perhaps intend
to stray beneath
a bare strip of thigh
now rippling
with the blood
or navel orange’s
silent ache—
only until dawn—
only until two petals
of chrysanthemum
try to rise or fall
or dissolve in a brush
of red incarnate
on a stretch of open neck.
