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Poem by Donna Pucciani
You have no idea what I’ve been through: decapitation in Rome
Now, when heaven summons me to everlasting quiet,
my unhappy fate is to listen to the desperate moans
of every baton-waver in every choir loft
abandoned by tenors and snowed in on Christmas,
all because some witless artist painted me
with a bunch of cherubs and harps.
A coloratura can sing no more today,
Merely coughs, the Jewel Song be damned;
a flautist rubs the hinge of her jaw,
a horn player battles with spit
and an oboist soaks her reeds in a shot glass
she’d rather fill with whisky
I am their last best hope.
And so to the long-armed trombonist
sliding into seventh, and hoping for the best, I say,
go for it, and to the unhappy child
Forced to practice until she has mastered
“Spinning Wheel” I say,
keep those little fingers up, and soon you can go and play
with your comrades in piles of fallen leaves.
My noble plaster bust blesses
the racket from the conservatoire,
they beseech me, red faced trumpeters,
reed-cracked bassoonists, saliva-stricken clarinets
and the sopranos…Oh the sopranos
In Brooklyn, a pianist swears at scales
in contrary motion.
In Detroit, wannabe Motown girls harmonize off-key,
and in Seattle, a violinist faces carpal tunnel sadness.
Sometimes I tire of their songs
the endless ocean of notes and rests,
Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Cherubini and Brahms,
climbing Wagner “mit lederhosen angst.”
At night I leave them in practice rooms
drinking black coffee and running arpeggios to the ground.
But I promise, I will wake them in the clear-throated morning,
gargled, lozenged , rosined, knuckle-cracked and ready to play,
for I am still very, very much alive.
