Beth Levin
[June 2020.]
Four-thirty
Gray-pink light
my shoes by the door
upstairs someone is getting a glass of water
the birds asleep the streets still but a single truck
a moaning pipe mimics my breathing
a little bass a little high-hat at four-thirty
Lovers, if you are awake
this is your time
Poem
I was in the Holiday Inn, winter
coffee pods saved me but I missed real milk
I’d order food and watch CNN or an old film
Eating the hours sinking into memory waking at two a.m.
When you picked me up it felt like a rescue
Poem
I dance around the piano today
tomorrow I’ll approach as a stranger
atoning for a teetering scale
a pristine sonata falling down in spots
the instrument slowly opening up
flesh to ivory ivory to flesh
A longing within the keys
to be touched even loved
one life so exacting of another
[Photo: Mike Lee]
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