February 9, 2010

the amateur rocks out

No one would mistake her for a singer. Her voice, always
a little on the quiet side, feels better suited to the page,
where she can let herself tinker with a subtler set of pitches.
And yet, a surreptitious animal has been circling the cage,
looking for an exit. Sometime after midnight, the writer
guarding the door retires at last, and the invert creature slithers out,
finds herself front and center with a song. The music startles her,
at first, but the virus of it latches to the center of her throat,
toppling its soldierly chords. The performance that follows is far
from perfect, of course. But the door, the door, somehow stays ajar.