Orichalcum

I bike past an old man every day as I return from work. He is always in the same park. He plays a trumpet, sitting proper and alone in his sunlit spotlight, for a crowd of none (save for the pigeons, and me). I always pedal slower to hear. I want to run my knuckles over its brass spine and see if my fingers remember what my mind does not. I want to remember the feel of cold metal against my lips, the tightening of my chest as I hollow my lungs of air. I want to remember the sweet sound it made under my touch. His orichalc notes ring nostalgically throughout this dappled meadow, and I think, how strange, to hear an art I once created myself. How beautiful. How terrible.