Mozart’s Concerto for Glass Harmonica

There you are, at the gate of the memory palace underneath the rusted teeth of the portcullis, your hand raised in a puzzling gesture— is it farewell, come here, get back, no blame, or are you just trying to hitch a ride? But I’ve seen that gesture when you sleep, as if you were saying to someone, on the one hand . . . on the other hand. Here is a memory to store in the palace— You and I at the circus. The arena is dark except for one blue spotlight. In it, a clown stands before a table. On the table an array, crystal wine glasses filled with different levels of water. He’s dressed in white with a conical hat, tear marks on one cheek. With a wet finger, he plays music that was once forbidden because it made musicians lose their minds. There is a blank look in his eyes and he performs perfectly, as if he were a mechanical clown. Now look up, the lady on the trapeze is dropping large blue crepe-paper flowers. Maybe the palace is the size of a dollhouse and my eye at the window is the eye of a giant. Maybe the palace is in my chest and my heart is beating too loud inside. I remember when I woke but was still asleep and saw my chest rising and falling on its own and then I accidentally rolled out of my body and there were two of me lying side by side. In an alcove shaped like a scallop shell I’ve placed a list of the way lovers have said goodbye. Developer fluid heated up, passed off as consommé, is a standout. As is GOODBYE written in shaving cream on the dusty windows of a row of abandoned cars in Baja. Just as I begin to suspect what is wrong with this picture I notice how lightly you step over the grillwork of the oubliette, that terrible lace under which men are forgotten. You raise your hand again and now I understand that gesture— it’s how you erase the distant mountains, the palace, the sky, everything.