Monkey

Once upon a time, there was a storythat knelt down beside my bed and breathedout a little monkey whom I loved.I loved to hear my mother's voice veiledin notes that fluttered at the end like sleevesthat then went still, as she turned to leave.

Last night I read an elegy aloud,a poem whose accent no farewell can know,and the voice on the line broke downinto little pieces. That, too, was old, the soundthat breaks apart a narrative, or opensa door to the lost son, missing in action.

I do not know where this story begins,when a song first had that understandingof forgotten loss named and unnamedthe moment of the telling. I do not claimto know what it is in music that grieves.Only this: animal, from ane, to breathe.

As voices must. Once upon a time,I laid my tongue to sleep inside a tomb.I have heard my mother at my bedsidetoo many times to think of her as dead.At the piano, my hands on top of hers.Before the end. Before I can remember.