I Leave Notes To Myself About Music I’ve Heard

After all, what is sound but memory,
misplaced regurgitation, reflex reaction to
a slant of moonlight, the way shadows
have learned the dance, the end of a game of
hide and go seek, a bee, river, sleep,
trees dancing with wind, scattered leaves
on a November road, a sigh.

When we dance, who controls the metronome?
I ask myself that, in the middle of
a twist which shows me the bar, then the table
two left from ours, the woman with the
low-cut black dress, so simple, so like a
major chord, a waltz, one, two, three,
repeat until the music stops.

And when it does, then what?  There’s
that awkward moment of transition,
when we both are still in the song,
full-stopped, lost, as though inertia
pulls us in two different directions —
our chairs, or another dance.

I love to listen to the music of
moving feet, dissonant jazz, the sevenths
cascading waterfall, the way each
instrument has the stage and not just
a single note in the spotlight, wailing
as though the world owed that one crisp
note a living, a reason for existing,
a stage upon which to be performed.