The Violinist

Coffee is bitter and grows colder

than a heart of thorns

But I never drop a note

not even when it burns

When all I left unsaid

Words and strings warped by smoke

After all, in the end

I cannot raise the dead

I never drop a note

not when my fingers bleed

Barbed wire coiled in my chest

My music is a drug

To blot out human need

Dust motes swirl the air

freed from the tempest of the bow

Unlike my heart, they settle

to blanket the cage I built

with freshly fallen snow

Unlike my heart, the stick is steady

The hair as fine as silk

Music constant as a promise

I left the keeping too late

It seems the melody grows bolder

Not older

Like her, the harmony does not age

but grows sweeter

more melancholic

Every time it’s played