The Concert by Lisel Mueller
In memory of Dimitri Mitropoulos
The harpist believes there is music in the skeletons of fish
The French horn player believes in enormous golden snails
The piano believes in nothing and grins from ear to ear
Strings are scratching their bellies openly, enjoying it
Flutes and oboes complain in dialects of the same tongue
Drumsticks rattle a calfskin from the sleep of another life
because the supernatural crow on the podium flaps his wings
and death is no excuse
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