I listen as if I’m waiting for clues
to my life, now it’s a choral piece,
piano accompaniment—
I can’t make out the words but tenors
and sopranos urge me somewhere
forward as if toward doors that might
open, increasing the volume
so I don’t have to strain to hear,
but then it’s a cappella until the whole
thing switches to orchestra,
horns taking the lead, though
if I were choosing it would be strings,
and despite not experiencing spasms
that could suggest tumor or injury, I suspect
Nietzsche is right: music
is in the muscles, which doesn’t explain
why it happens on the way to sleep
but not sleeping, the body letting go until
I stop to check the clock
or decide to listen harder,
sometimes rewarded by a phrase
that seems familiar, although I’m never
sure, especially when it’s interrupted by the dogs
stirring in their crates or a car
going by, even when it picks up where it left off,
keeping its own time, simply
letting me eavesdrop, and while some say
it’s fillings in teeth picking up radio signals,
I’d rather think of the brain
tuning to frequencies closer to invention
than explicable chance—but then, the two
are intimates, aren’t they, and shouldn’t I
just let them dance?
