AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS ADAGIO FOR VIOLIN AND VIOLA
(for Hilary Hahn)
Not unlike
a twinning of fingers
to begin a slide—
a bending in pitch—
until a layer
of uncertainty
begins to merge
two citrus bodies—
say a blood or
navel orange—
in a still life.
And yet not a ‘sound’
like a long passage
connecting two bodies
of water below
a duvet of darkness
or as waves
of intonation
from camellia 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 softer light
could be called
abandon, for now.
But a sound
of fingers
on taut strings—
while orange petals
warm the air
above the wisp
of a wick—
as if any two
wooden bodies
might share a note
—or anything
hand drawn—
to inscribe us so close
to a Trouble Clef
that a silkening seems
to blend us into
one long scarf of sigh
—almost pianissimo
as freshly cut violets—
or perhaps reaches
beneath a bare stretch
of thigh or neck
that surely must
ripple with the blood
or navel orange’s
silent ache
or not—
as if only until dawn,
as if only until
the filaments
—of said ripple—
become prone to rise or fall
like a brush of red chrysanthemum
on a ridge of collarbone.
