In another life, you’ll master
keyboards, the harpsichord, play fugues,
fantasias, the Goldberg Variations
so flawlessly and often you’ll dream
you’re Bach’s mother, dying again,
orphaning him again. When you wake,
a boy will hover at your bedside, your own
son, your youngest, hushed
as snow, stiff
as an icicle afraid to drip.
You’ll want to shake him, hiss
buck up, but you won’t. What you’ll do
is sing, some old song, Mama’s
gonna buy you, until he sings too,
both of you raspy-voiced, tone-deaf,
softly, softly singing.
–
Lynn Domina is the author of two collections of poetry, Corporal Works and Framed in Silence, and the editor of a collection of essays, Poets on the Psalms. Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, Saranac Review, and other periodicals. She is the creative writing editor at The Other Journal and lives in Marquette, Michigan, along the beautiful shores of Lake Superior.