Grappelli is in a corner
of the apartment
his sound pervades the place,
though He evades it completely.
like he slipped in
when the curtains wavered forward
like his notes slip past
their green cloth corners.
--he's in the room
I'm watching the curtain swing
some more.
Grapelli smiles a little with
fingerish ease.
the curtains role--
manifesting rainslick surprise,
Grappelli's bow sends off
amorphous ladders that
suspend themselves
(massless) inbetween
the space of rests--
he says: climb up.
Scry that is a weave of music:
a woman's story
in the man's song
from her rooftop watch
she lets salt
temper her vision
not in tears
just in virtue of
her satisfied gaze upon
a humid day of gold
(straying of sweat)
the understanding of the woman
it is dolorous
She's a tumble of roughness
but (eventually) sweet after all
like the canvas curtain
occasionally, gently, flexing.
in her hands she holds
stale bread--pronounced
between carelessly stretched
fingers, at which birds bicker
the pores
of her neck exposed
by glistening salt
prompts Grappelli's cumulus dreaming
(breeze blows
behind the curtains)
Brushing some hair aside
she lets it pass, unceremoniously
a strand absorbing salt.
She thinks of the man's song
crumbling (with good messy human dignity) since
it is her story
spreading through
breezes playinglike one is yet to discover
every note--she knows his song.
She's a description her
story
Grappelli's unclenched derivation
in salt sounds and the breeze
of a whole E, which lengthens itself
into a form of wilder facts
(after she teased and spirited
a crinkling of the eyes)
Grappelli's invitation to
dream of you.
An Obituary
