Music as a Metaphor

Music as a Metaphor

It is desire that brings me

to the city then back to the country.

I spend sleepless nights listening to traffic

starting at 4am. Just a few cars,

swishing sounds of tires pass the sash.

Sounds circle in a spiral on repeat.

At 5am, swishing sounds grow even longer,

every ten minutes or so after,

grows even heavier until it becomes

one long flowing sound, a circular ride,

a Ferris wheel with bad speakers.

That’s when I know, I know it is time,

time to get up and face it.

In this moment I want to write,

I want to write a villanelle.

Looking in the mirror, I realize

I only like to say the word villanelle.

I know it is fiction, the scarecrow, but

it is true, the scarecrow comes to life.

It jumps from its rail, it begins its search

circling for the lion it never finds,

but the tin man, the tin man always .