Art Song - Poem

Commonweal, Oct 12, 2001 by Peter E. Murphy

   He hears it when stopped in traffic
   at the intersection where expressionless
   commuters drift by behind winds of glass.

   It's not the kind of music he could dance to,
   nor would he dance if it were not for women
   who think his soul generous.

   No, he hears the music of insistence.
   Its refrain--me me me--is also the coda.
   In between are stanzas of desire--me you me you--

   until the light changes and he shifts himself
   into drive, confused by the determination
   of traffic revving its engines and the wipers singing

   their little hearts out, brush strokes
   on a snare drum, which is what he imagines
   is the music of his own heart: a thin layer

   of skin stretched over a hollowed root,
   rattled by the swish and whisk of light fingers--
   the scratch and fizz of air gasping through dry chambers.