The Homecoming

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Once he returned from a long trip and found dozens of dead canaries. They littered the terrace, his doorstep, every dirty windowsill, casting strange yellow light and tiny shadows. That night he tried to clear the cobblestones of their otherworldly debris, humming Dvorak and muttering to himself. A coffee pot rattled in the kitchen. Then he stopped, leaving feathers to drift in each corner, the old grey house still an homage to some other life.

Dearest V.,

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Halfway through a silent film, with its dark curtains and pale women, I start to think of the cello. Did a corseted actress say your name? Did she somehow mean eclipsed? Behind the stage, a piano moves to lower octaves, shuddering one note at a time. And as trolleys flicker across a porous screen, and I can almost hear your white teeth glisten, like little bells. At that, the audience applauds.

Cantatrice

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He recalls painting the second story rooms, hearing a neighbor croon Tosca from below. As the lady sings, light in her hair becomes a constellation, its points aligned in the pale November sky. He taps his brush and crows fly out to meet her, flapping their hollow-boned wings. She sways from east to west. When the clock chimes, his halls loom blue above him. The woman sings and sings.

Ennui

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You walk past a crystal decanter glistening near the harpsichord. Since our guests left for the ocean, with its dark enclaves and low mumbling, the lakes have done nothing but rain. And our dim halls become more cavernous every evening. When I ask why the rooms buzz with damselflies, you merely nod your head. The shutters blow open and closed. Our parlor hums like trees shifting before a storm.

Saint Brigid

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Or do I mean a mourning dove, rustling in the trees? Again, the harps are quiet. Ever since her miracles stopped, the sisters have wept and wept. And when the organ starts up, groaning under vaults and beams, light catches the dust in every window. Pews begin to glisten as though they were polished steel. A dark bird warbles in the nunnery while the hagiographers nod their heads, listening intently from the eaves.