Psalm
Afternoon enters, illuminates
the orange, the glass fruit bowl–
the glowing, scalloped edge of it
like a young girl’s glossed lip.
Gold flecks of glitter sparkle
in the counter. A Bach fugue–
fragile but insistent–threads itself
into and out of the light: I wonder
at the sun, its secret yellow role
in the composition of these notes,
whether there was a scalloped
glass bowl on Bach’s table,
fruit-filled, illuminated. Blessed
is the kitchen radio, its timelessness.
Hints of static glitter the sound.
Blessed is the table-top, the glossy
pine face of it, the grapes, the hinges,
the glowing orange cupboards.
Perched
I am perched on the thin branch
of your word, madly in love
with the light, looking down
on the grand foolishness
of work—of going and coming,
saying and doing. I am undone,
good for nothing but wild,
impetuous humming. I am singing
into the blue ear of the sky, waiting,
impatiently pondering the bold
unfolding of the clouds, the meadow’s
tremulous arc and rise. I am ravished
by the fragile slant of the afternoon’s
slow descent. I am perfectly content,
yet desperately sick. O come,
comfort me with a word, a cloud-like
kiss, the sure fruit of your tongue—I am
by your gentleness undone.
The Violist
How the wrist curves, the hand
half-bends, the elbow angles out
away from the shoulder, how the fingers
quiver, the head tilts and bows, how
the body leans forward as if leaning
were hearing, as if hearing were
moving, as if the instrument
were a kind of ornament—elegant,
redundant—the polished hollow of it
more than an open mouth, the bow,
not just a taut ribbon of coarse hair,
the trembling voice of the strings,
something other than a brief articulation
of air, each note a note except for where
it is evidence of what has come before:
echo, artifact of the heart, slight turn
of the wrist behind the closed eye, elegy
for what only the body knows.
Abigail Carroll holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Boston University. She has published prose in the New York Times, Winterthur Portfolio, and the Journal of Food, Culture and Society and is currently writing a popular history of the American meal for Basic Books. She lives in Winooski, Vermont, where she is a member of the Spring Street Poets.
