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 as signed waves
from red carnation lips
making the 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
a sound like fingers
on taut strings—
while orange petals
warm the air
above the wisp
of a wick—
as if these two
curving bodies
might share a note
—or anything
hand drawn—
that could
inscribe us closer
to a Trouble Clef
where a silkening
seeks to blend us
into one long scarf
of sigh—almost pianissimo
as freshly cut violets—
or perhaps begins
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
a few filaments
feel prone to rise or fall
as a brush of red incarnate
on an inch of open neck.
