First, we start with Bach.
The teacher plays with the sound
system. Cords and wires. I lie
on the dance floor. Sliding glass doors
open. Sun warming my face.
The Goldberg Variations.
Play and it is thirty years ago. I am
in N’s kitchen eating bortsch and black bread.
Drinking too-sweet black tea
from the samovar. Glen Gould was the best,
N says. We close our eyes
and listen to the man who would sit on a
stool
to
play.
Who shunned the public. Who
erased time with his long
bony fingers.
I lie on the dance floor thirty years
later. My back sore already from
grey hardness. But I stay. Or rather I leave.
We stand. Move joints. Next we go to breath.
I am in
and
out of time.
Remember to breathe
says the teacher. All in black. Her
t-shirt like a sheet. Glen Gould continues.
About Tara Zafft:
Tara Zafft has a BA from UC San Diego and Ph.D in Russian literature from the University of
Bath, UK. She began writing poetry when she was thirteen, and only recently began submitting
her work for publication. She has poems published in the anthology, Rumors Secrets and Lies,
Poems about Abortion, Pregnancy and Choice, Write-Haus, and The San Diego Poetry Annual.
She counts Frank O’Hara, Sandra Cisneros, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton among her greatest
poetic influences. She is interested in the big and small moments that make up our lives, in the
search for self and the inevitability of change, and what distinguishes us and what unites us as
human beings.
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