A Southward Tide

Sounds cast from piano strings
build phrases like skyscrapers shells,
a window lattice of violin bows
slashed by the conductor’s hand.

If only words could fly like that,
ruthless slicing the atmosphere
like the grid skin of an arithmetic city.

The music rises in adjectives and verbs,
the cello spins prepositions to rarified heights.

Our words have not the tensile strength
to buttress the transoms of this geometric land.

But our ears, they float heavenward
along polished beams and glass planes,
gliding like rational snakes up a vertical map
to coordinates unresolved,
supple and punctilious.