I've come to see a dread-locked man
play Mozart like a demon (someone said) with angels
harrowing his back, or like a seraph
sought by succubi.
The black piano waits wide-legged, in boxer's pose.
It's a sarcophagus that stores
whole flocks of birds, banks of cirrus clouds,
Egyptian forest groves,
and a thousand metaphysical motes
to sting a watcher's eyes like sleet.
A corps in funeral dress lines up in rows,
but the piano holds the most tonight.
We gather on its rim and hunger towards it,
till the stage man props its jaw wide.
Then out strides this lion-headed man,
whom everyone can see the weather in. Then
the winds inhale, and the bows tilt at even angles
like the tiny masts of lifted sails.
Right away, the piano's notes unknot
some inner ropes in me, hoist some mainsheet,
loose in us some breeze, and with a broad wave
of the maestro's wand, we're off,
the notes skittering us along
like surf. The keys are black and bone and pose
a hurried order. When his lion's head
drops back, his face becomes a soft-edged mask
lifted in defiance of the night we came here
stalled in. See, my face is wet
I never haven't breathed so long. I've seen
a death with order, but in no way mean.
He's sprung our sternums wide
and freed us from our numbered seats.
We levitate as one and try to match
the thunder in his chest
with all our hands.
(for Awadagin Pratt)
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