by Bruce Boston
TWO NIGHTSTANDS ATTACKING A CELLO
after Dali
It doesn't stand a chance.
Their solid wood panels
and sharp edges beating
its delicately formed
and hand polished shell.
Their vicious drawers
with brass handles
gouging at its neck,
striking and raking
its tender strings,
forcing it to cry out
in a discordant roar.
Afterward the nefarious
pair return to their
stations by the sides
of the bed, once again
motionless, seemingly
innocent as any object
of inanimate furniture,
marred by little more
than a scratch or two
as evidence of their
abandon, their brutal
and unprovoked assault.
Aching in every fiber
of its fragile being,
the cello retreats to
the corner of the room,
suffering in silence,
nursing its many wounds.
Yet when it summons
the courage to speak,
it discovers that the
resonance of its voice
has been transformed
through this ordeal
of pain and humiliation.
The true dulcet tones
and melancholy overtones
too long hidden in the
hollow of its chest
have emerged unbidden.
Astounded by the depth
of this doleful epiphany,
mute and wooden as
the day they were made,
the nightstands listen
with strained indifference
and all the pent fury
of rectilinear forms.
--
Appeared in The Pedestal Magazine