Orchestration of Solitude

Before the house wakes up,

before retired lovers speed

walk and bachelors jog past

the bay window separating us,

I stare out between sleeping

houses and bare branches

at the uncertainty

of a gray-blue horizon

that will eventually overlook

a street in some setting

of some story whose cursor

stabs the white page.

Alternating glimpses

of my rippled reflection

drown my dream-

like lunacy in the ebb

of coffee

that stains the mug

and my return to sleep.

I need a morning

drive in solitude.

I am on the road, an explorer

of an uninhabited town

driving--sixty

seconds of Andante Spianato,

a symphony seducing sunrise

warmth into the car and me--

and the tires glide

with the undulating

piano notes that lull.

The legato,

like the morning haze,

holds buildings, blackened lights,

and slick streets in suspension,

hangs the backdrop for fiction's ghosts.

Bass strings breathe,

piano notes poke instincts,

and a face flickers in my mind:

the protagonist.

She dances the polonaise

to a violin that teases

death. She is barely alive.

The silhouette of the villain,

vaguely visible, bends in shadow,

the symphony slinking behind him.

Raindrops burst open on the glass

in time with trickling notes,

and the fading sounds massage

my head and neck as I turn

the car down my road,

return home,

and write.

Copyright (c) 2011, 2013, 2015, 2020 by Lindsey Vernon

All rights reserved