Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor

It was the way he touched his mother’s neck
that first gave him the idea. Her vocal cords
trembled under his yet-delicate fingers,
& he thought of that warmth when he fastened
an iron rod to the piano chords & bit it until

he could feel the first few notes of his sonata
reverberating in his skull & moving his ossicles.
He’d played his life legato, as though
no one would die on him, even as time
worked at dulling his senses.

Every night he lay down to sleep,
he rehearsed his death. He’d become
used to it after it carried his brothers off
one by one & shrivelled his mother’s heart
as though it was a piece of meat left to dry

in the smokehouse—so bitter that even
the flies wouldn’t eat it, so hard that it must have
made a sound when she lay down. He’d lie
in the emptying bed & feel as though he’d swallowed
stones, which now clattered inside him.

His mother was the last to leave & he
thought of her as he tasted the cold iron, searching
for a note that only she had sung,
hearing the music played by a God who took
things from him & gave them back

years later, when he didn’t need them anymore.
When his music sheet was full,
he tasted an almond & apricot cake
like the one his mother used to make for him &
in that final hour, he understood that searching
through the years is no task
                                                      for the living.