The violin plays
sadness, my darling.
A man returns from a place
a bomb was dropped.
The world will never
again be what it once was.
I arrange the pieces
and retell them.
I feel the same as the violin
when it cries out.
That screeching edge of sadness,
did you know it was there?
The violin knows, and also knows
the ecstatic feedback of a microphone
or a voice dropped so low
it may never rise again.
Around me is jazz and cocktails,
the swish slur slur of ice and voices.
But I am alone in a room
curled on my side.
I am retelling the story of a man
back from war. A bomb
has blown the soft
blurs of sadness into bits,
and what is left,
my darling?