Melissa Chen

By September 8, 2016 Uncategorized

Melissa Chen (Epsom Girls Grammar School, Auckland)

Reprise

yesterday                                       (fine)

do you remember summer days
blazing sforzandos when you pushed me higher
   always    & told me you liked glissandos
i turned from the sky and watched you
waving on the ground    happily

& winter lead you by the hand    away
   you were lost in the morning fog
but you called it love &
drew hearts on opaque glass
   they bled but you laughed

later you cried    i heard your tears staccato
fall    your cheek pressed against
the window pane matching raindrops
outside you sospirando in the dark
   the piano in e minor for
   forty days and forty nights

beneath floorboards in your room
   a gold laced book
on sun-stained pages in cobweb ink
      a requiem    unnamed

now the birds sing a capellas but
you are deaf    & twice disgraced

on the window
   not rain nor frost but
bleeding hearts    rhapsodies &
fingerprints
      on white piano keys thin black islands
      & dust middle c untouched
                                                       (Da Capo al fine)

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