Beethoven

Deep autumn, my neighbor starts to wonder

how am I going to live. I want to die.

Life has depleted its sustenance. No telephone.

No texts from you. I listen to Beethoven,

learning how to go on even if I’m betrayed

by the present. In two hours

it’s going to rain. The streets will be completely bare.

The world grotesque like a stretcher.

Future full of meanness, vatic with voids.

Late sonatas of Beethoven are different

from his earlier works, his more familiar,

famous lessons on strength and light.

Pedagogical arpeggios. Polished by time

and torments of time, like a leaf stuck

in the windowpane, Sonata no. 31, for example,

is but a magpie with its wings and tail chopped off.

Even if you don’t want life, you live by eating,

sleeping, loving without an object.

You pray and your prayer comes true. All this

is but a dream of feathers. I wait for the pianist’s

fingers to slide back into her pockets.