Midday Light, Halved

Turned the CD player on and let it
carve a great big slice of Brahms –
A minor – Quartet Number Two –
before a semi-slumber threw me into
semi-somnolent hallucination – I had
halved the midday light by pulling closed
four wooden shutters on the windows:
shoved a pillow tight between

my thighs, and clutched another
to my chest, and wedged my head
into a third, patently to grab
some rest – looked like a grimly
hibernating prehistoric bird –
by this time I had heard the better part
of Brahms’s swoon of the first quarter
of the quartet’s feast – the movement

mooned-and-starred me back
to childhood – evening, setting silverware
for dinner, placemats on the table,
somehow knowing that I hadn’t
made a space for everyone – couldn’t
think whom I forgot. By now
the Brahms had reached a spot where
it could not suspend me anymore:

a jabbing mad allegro shored me back
into the need for day, and all this
hibernating musical dim prehistoric
reverie blew, soft, away – like
seedpods from a fluff of the forgettable.
Although regrettable that I could
not recall that dinner guest –
as if I’d failed some secret test.


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