Silent Music

My wife wears headphones as she plays Chopin etudes in the winter light. Singing random notes, she sways in and out of shadow while night settles. The keys she presses make a soft clack, the bench creaks when her weight shifts, golden cotton fabric ripples across her shoulders, and the sustain pedal clicks. This is the hidden melody I know so well, her body finding harmony in the give and take of motion, her lyric grace of gesture measured against a slow fall of darkness. Now stillness descends to signal the end of her silent music.