Still Life with Riddle

There are that resting, rise --Dickinson

It’s something there behind the light blue-bottled
buildings and imperfect fruit. Some spillage
of the red upon the cloth, black in the pinks
igniting up and down the street. It’s in the key of
ai, composed at the piano by the “private” woman
in the room above. We hear her in the distance
at odd hours, qualifying notes, repealing chords.
Like music to be danced on by the blind, while
Uncle Max is telling us again his story: tanks
parked in the wheat field one bright morning.
Sylvie wonders is it war. Paralysis of knowing
any step you take can detonate. The air drips
to a pool of pain, augmented to a faith, inverted
toward itself, despair. She glances toward the door.
At least that’s how we see her. Bandaged fingers
buttoning a scale of words, words pressed upon
her tongue by darkness. Or one afternoon, snow
piled against the garbage bags, all stop.
She feels skies tip, let cities slip, the soldier earth
gone quiet in the din. Those pinks will soon
be lighting up again. She’s at the window.
Buildings pouring blue like stones. A perfect
orange rolling past the edge. She listens
for a bell. Sustains the chord with white. Now
drops the i.

Tom Koontz
Visiting Emily (anthology, 80 poems written in response to Dickinson's work) 2001