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89th Weekly Poetry Contest winner: TWO NIGHTSTANDS ATTACKING A CELLO

by Bruce Boston

TWO NIGHTSTANDS ATTACKING A CELLO
after Dali
 
It doesn't stand a chance.
Their solid wood panels
 
and sharp edges beating
its delicately formed
 
and hand polished shell.
Their vicious drawers
 
with brass handles
gouging at its neck,
 
striking and raking
its tender strings,
 
forcing it to cry out
in a discordant roar.
 
Afterward the nefarious
pair return to their
 
stations by the sides
of the bed, once again
 
motionless, seemingly
innocent as any object
 
of inanimate furniture,
marred by little more
 
than a scratch or two
as evidence of their
 
abandon, their brutal
and unprovoked assault.
 
Aching in every fiber
of its fragile being,
 
the cello retreats to
the corner of the room,
 
suffering in silence,
nursing its many wounds.
 
Yet when it summons
the courage to speak,
 
it discovers that the
resonance of its voice
 
has been transformed
through this ordeal
 
of pain and humiliation.
The true dulcet tones
 
and melancholy overtones
too long hidden in the
 
hollow of its chest
have emerged unbidden.
 
Astounded by the depth
of this doleful epiphany,
 
mute and wooden as
the day they were made,
 
the nightstands listen
with strained indifference
 
and all the pent fury
of rectilinear forms.

--
Appeared in The Pedestal Magazine

See all the entrants to 89th Weekly Poetry Contest