cellist

You're watching that cellist for clues. The rasp of her bow
across one or more strings, the giveaway bunch of muscle
under a long sleek sleeve, the traditional colour slicked
over effort. Lower still the underground: two circuits, red
and blue, as we were taught; one un-notched system
under some command you cannot for the moment fathom;
and all the time the music running through unseen
tunnels in what you take to be the passes of her heart.

Her little finger slides and compresses. You catch
a raggedness beside the nail, which needn't be a flaw.
You wonder how a twig like that could hold down,
dog-on-a-lead, your wayward mind. What joins them—
that's what you're after. You could write up a column
in praise of her playing. Now you're close to the ceiling
and the feeling cries out for a name. When you put them

together (the making, the meaning) alongside the ceiling,
you can see how it started; how the whole thing began
with the gods. But today, well, it's one leap too many.
You stay with the human side somehow apparent;
with a matchstick of finger, or that tear in the skin
like a half-erased print interrupting the turn of the clay.
In the end you come up with the raw edge of wonder.