Music Between Strangers

A sycamore grove, and in its limbs the orchestra played Má vlast, so I saw boughs bouncing and tuxedo legs swinging sap-spotted above the splayed blades of the ground feathered black in moss, in the sweat of the set sun, and the players’ faces where moths roosted, where leaf-points drew water-stripes on brows and eyelids, their hands that stirred in pollen like a fog, were masked by birds’ nests and bows and flaking vines. That you were last to climb down, trumpet tied to your back with blue twine, is the only thing I believe in, and after you landed, drifting through a stream, in a mat of orange needles, you whistled to what light could float through the leaves’ screen and canopy, diffuse like tracing tissue, a scrum of benday dots, and not much at that, now that more than the concert has ended, my musician.