My Date with Glenn Gould
By Jim Cory
What god does he
pray to, swaying
like that, muttering
orange chords
at the clouds
drifting by
inside his head?
Oh, to be his
bow tie, carelessly
pulled in place,
or to perch on the rim
or an ear, hearing
birds flirt
from their boughs.
Forests of notes
coaxed from
between bow staves:
we get lost
in them, stopping now & then
to picnic on crumbs
of Beethoven's skull.
At the end of the night
he vanishes
as sound sculpted
in air, decaying into
what was there
before before was.
Copyright Credit: Jim Cory, "My Date with Glenn Gould" from Birds & Building. Copyright © 2019 by Jim Cory. Reprinted by permission of Literary Estate of Jim Cory.
Source: Birds & Buildings (Moonstone Press, 2019)