The next poem is called "Maestro."
"Maestro."
"What is memory?
What makes a body glow, an apple orchard in Moldova,
and the school is bombed--
When the schools are bombed, sadness is forbidden.
I write this now and I feel my body's weight, the screaming
girls, 347 voices in the story of a doctor saving them,
his hands trapped under a wall, his granddaughter dying
nearby--
She whispers, 'I don't want to die, I have eaten such apples.'
He watches her mouth as a blind man reading lips
and yells 'Shut up!
I am near the window, I am asking for help!'
speaking, he cannot stop speaking, in the dark--
of Brahms, Chopin he speaks to them to calm them.
A doctor, yes, what ever window framed his life,
outside, tomatoes grew, clouds passed and we once lived.
A doctor with a tattoo of a parrot on his trapped arm
seeing his granddaughter's cheekbones no longer
her cheekbones, with surgical precision stitches
suffering and grace.
Two days pass, he shouts in his window,
there is no window when rescue approaches
he speaks of Chopin, Chopin.
They cut off his hands, they say he's 'doing OK.'
In my dream, he stands, feeding bread to pigeons,
surrounded by pigeons, birds on his head, his shoulder,
he shouts 'you don't understand a thing!'
He is breathing himself to sleep, the city sleeps,
there is no such city."