Thursday, April 22, 2010

When he came for the family

"They looked at their daughter standing with her music
in her hand, the page covered with dots and
lines, with its shared language. They knew
families had been taken. What they did not know
was the way he would pick her cello up
by the scroll neck and take its amber
torso-shape and lift it and break it
against the fireplace. The brickwork crushed the
close-grained satiny wood, they stood and
stared at him."
-Sharon Olds

I love this. The picture it traces, and I'm trying to use 'trace' meaningfully here. I love the detail in the description of the cello, but I almost want to take the bones of the rest of the poem and fill them in to a similar degree. It's not to the point of frustration, but to the point of tantalization. ;o)

No comments:

Post a Comment