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Duet in E minor: 2002 Cold weather, we agreed, was bad for the instrument.All winter long you’d driven me to my car, as if dark Capricorn evenings, almost sinister, could split a soundboard in a single, seismic instant.The truth is January’s mild in our town; often I wore that scarf just because you’d smooth it with the back of your hand, then drift up to my girl-glossed lips: Sweetness,you look so good in brown. Come March, there were fewer excuses. Every day I drove with my windows down, the air blowing both ways, like the high E and the low, struck at the same moment—their ringing enveloped me. I called you and asked, is it possible for you to love two at once, and your yes was like your arm 23 when it conducted the ensemble—a clear source of authority. I knew Anna, the woman you’d loved for eleven years; she was my dance teacher. On Fridays after my music lesson, I’d wear her helmet, two sizes too large, riding on the back of your Honda.That spring, I learned wind from all sides. 24 ...

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