Étude
       

even now as you
judge me, a tiny
tuxedoed ape
parts the curtain
and approaches
the piano at
the center of my mind.
eyes clasped
in the lamplight,
he plays jacques ibert,
it is le vieux mendiant.
can you comprehend
the emptied cathedral
quaking around him
through the dark?
it is a song for you.
it contains
your childhood, which
has forgotten you.
which it crushes
with beauty.

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Copyright © 2014 Andrew Michael Roberts All rights reserved
from Burnside Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission