by Bettina Sapien.
I was insulted when you said I had a voice like an oboe. Then I remembered the oboe solo in the first act of Swan Lake. How it rises from the pit and serpentines up the aisle. Locates my seat and slides underneath. The summer voice of a friend calling up from the street, can you come out?
How about when you said the sound of my heart beating was like the tap of twenty-five white crested ballerinas on pointe. The rat-a-tat of rain drops on a wooden porch. Revelation sized drops that don’t touch each other when they fall, because they fall straight down.
I sit in the balcony. The violins begin. Wood and string forge ribbons of light. Those ribbons climb a ladder, push open a gate, and the grey pearl sky pours in. I am not discouraged. I am uplifted. We had a piece of that shimmering sound.