Science of Friendship

 

My friend listens

to music like an interested infant.

My friend does not forget much.

My friend plays.

 

My friend ignores habitually

the people, the cries – the silence of the crowd –

wind tricklin’ hoots through

its cracks.

 

My friend is a vocalist of piano

singing note after note

of song on keys

on board of eighty-eight, even.

 

The sheets are there. Songs

reflecting precisely her own feelings

about things. And there they are forever

in her memory – just like ancestral ones –

 

in the minds of humans all over the World and

inscribed sometimes in script, or, if they’re

acquainted deep in my thought, then – that’s

me, walkin’ – a mobile studio.

 

And I have worked it out the things

my friend plays, must be borrowed

and taken inside my own head

before I can even hear

them in a song.

 

My friend collects iron even when she is sorrowful

and yet is able to accumulate

laughter when she hugs me: and yes

my friend is where she waits for me

to catch my breathe watching

my life restart at now

quickly and quietly.

 

My friend is irreplaceable – almost perfect?

My friend plays. My friend is laughter.

 

 

World Language and Literature

Natalie Cassello

September 19, 2014