The Cello
James Miller
Your bridge sloped to the left, but what
else could we afford? And how serious
a musician would I pretend to be—for you?
Tang of resin on the bow, first draw
across your lowest, truest string.
These I swirled in my cheeks like salsa.
So too the lift from scale to song,
honest throb in my knees and sweet
nausea of wine-casked Brandenburg.
I sold you, to a friend, for first month’s
rent on my first apartment. Saw you off
at the greyhound terminal to Austin.
She did not stay for lunch, let’s say.
Stepped back onto the bus, settled your bulk
in the window seat. Probably she waved
as the wheels crunched. I was thinking
of our dutiful practice in my mother’s house,
years ago. Downhall the TV twittered,
while we worked together on the Bach,
slow as sacred glass. We had no music stand,
do you remember? I spread our scores
on the lip of my father’s gun case,
whose four Winchesters needed no keys,
no locks. As you pulled away, I closed
his two heavy drawers at my feet.
Once I counted their contents: duck calls,
jeweler’s loupes, stale boxes of shotgun shells.
James Miller is a native of Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in Sweet Tree Review, Cold Mountain Review, The Maine Review, Lullwater Review, Lunch Ticket, Gravel, Main Street Rag, Verdad, Juked, The Write Launch, The Shore, Menacing Hedge, Califragile, The Atlanta Review, and elsewhere.