She rose from a provincial dearth
of composers to flower
in Leipzig on the hour
of any of the twenty-four
movements the judges could request.
Then came a career bequest
from the man who stood,
a ghost, behind the music
for forty years to come.
She bent the book back before
she played the first time.
The book disappeared.
She cleared her mind.
She saw colleagues shot,
no one came back.
To one same soundtrack
years passed, musical staffs noted
with ink stains.
She played in memory of
the memories she forgot.
She blurs herself down
the steps in black and white,
but precisely. Too many movements
for just one night.
She drives the piano pedals
and crosses her hands left under right,
arrives by car.
Old Glory in stillness
for a Soviet star,
applause.
Now America, she takes the stage.
A woman her age
plays piano in a silk tent
like evening wear
and sandals.
Who is the man in row ten?
She does not notice.
He turns the score
to the beginning.
For bows, she nods. Nothing more.
And then, she plays. She plays
her part, the only one.
The blackness
before her, lifetimes flashing.
She sees her own fingers thrashing,
she hears their sound.
The ghost behind her
sits down
on the ground.
Her god has fallen asleep.
In his American dreams
it is 1949 again,
World Peace New York
a nightmare time again,
ticking at the back of his head.
He sees the future, his past is dead.
He’ll meet her soon,
play the first major
chord, then the years hear her play it
as it’s scored.
What have I seen?
asks the woman of the ghost.
I have seen the final notes,
she herself answers.
He rises above her,
sends her west. She feels
the deepest loneliness,
the rocking back and forth
a kind of homesickness.
“The ghost consoles her,” Pravda reports. “Leningrad. New York.
A California story.”
The ghost
offers allegory.
The pianist with an aneurysm,
goddess with one-note wings.
She crashes into herself and
dies in the fall.
No post-concert conversation.
No curtain call.