Monkey
       

Once upon a time, there was a story
that knelt down beside my bed and breathed
out a little monkey whom I loved.
I loved to hear my mother's voice veiled
in notes that fluttered at the end like sleeves
that then went still, as she turned to leave.

Last night, I read an elegy aloud,
a poem whose accent no farewell can know,
and the voice on the line broke down
into little pieces. That too was old, the sound
that breaks apart a narrative, or opens
a door to the lost son, missing in action.

I do not know where this story begins,
when a song first had that understanding
of forgotten loss named and unnamed
the moment of the telling. I do not claim
to know what it is in music that grieves.
Only this: animal, from ane, to breathe.

As voices must. Once upon a time,
I laid my tongue to sleep inside a tomb.
I have heard my mother at my bedside
too many times to think of her as dead.
At the piano, my hands on top of hers.
Before the end. Before I can remember.

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Copyright © 2021 Bruce Bond All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission