Violin


It's been sleeping under the bed
for twenty years.

Once I let it out every day.
Neighbors picked up bits of music
wedged into grass.

I stroked the resiny hairs of bow.
All my tutors, lunatics, but my mother
left us alone.

Sometimes a sonata
broke in the middle—
I stitched it together
slowly, slowly.

Graceful shoulders,
elegant neck—
what do you know now
that you didn't know then?