Sweet Polyphony

by Adam Bjelland

 

Perhaps born from two notes of music,

The offspring of a bright, yellow A

          and a melancholy E,

She comes to me in a new song,

Or appears suddenly in the arrangement

Of a classic composition, where she’d

          never resounded before.

 

Long after I’ve forgotten her face

And atoned for my digressions,

I hear her in intervals and I’m

Stricken with a sharp chord of consonance.

 

Perhaps the mortal incestuous incantation

Of Apollo and Terpsichore,

She holds the key, haunting me in measures.

Her contours entrance me, and with

Staccato half-steps I always walk back

To her for reprise.

 

Two voices—

          Harmonically codependent,

          Yet rhythmically sovereign.

 

If I were deaf, maybe I could forget her