Play Like You Are About to Start Crying

The clock keeps time tic toc 
Round and round again, our ordered nonsense
tracks like a fuguey finger exercise
rattles our bones, we play like we’re about to start crying
while the tension of a steady beat, beats steady
halts the nonsense of tears, shakes floorboards
and walls instead.  

Woman at the window watches rain 
waters rise and the land sinks under the weight
-so much nonsense, sky cries, bones rattle,  
beats tic toc, the clock keeps time, our joy,
laughing, crying, everything. Our letters
are wet, our songs sputter, three-part fugue
left hand right hand round and round, back
and forth in straight lines without losing
a beat.

The clock keeps time tic toc
And time bends under the weight
of all this nonsense, sputter, bone
rattle.  We tense against the pulse, play like
we’re about to start crying, stand with
the woman at the window watching
rain, our wet letters, our sputtering songs, 
the weeping sky, the sinking ground at her feet.