Thumbs dance a graceful tango
as right moves left
and left right across keys
in deliberate journey.
I look at the pianist’s feet
upon the pedals,
automatic underpinning,
cellular memory.
I observe the energy rising
from his center
through perpendicular torso,
hands exploding impossible hope.
I search his eyes
Oblivious to mine
because they already inhabit
a timeless destination.
That destination’s sound
is loyal to a composer
dead before his birth.
The thumb tango lifts me
from my front-row seat,
pulls me into a forest
where black and white move faster
than the speed of gasping breaths
exploding from the lungs
of a patient in Kabul
still burning in her hospital bed
after the US strike.
Collateral damage, the
spokesperson says
on condition
of anonymity.
Margaret Randall
Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Read Alice Embree’s Rag Blog review of Margaret Randall’s Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary, here.
- Listen to the podcast of Thorne Dreyer and Alice Embree’s Oct. 2, 2015, Rag Radio interview with Margaret Randall, here:
[Margaret Randall is an acclaimed poet, essayist, oral historian, translator, photographer, and social activist. Her most recent book is Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression.]
