SILENCED STRAINS
Annapurna Poduri
Feet pace past faces.
The Calvin Kleins ignore sidewalk spit
and the.
Warning fires in “DON’T WALK” signs
blinking on midnight-blue dusk
Wind-flapped azure coat
Matches the setting sky.
Winter-breath whistles out a Bach
prelude cloud that Disappears
Into the stack smoke behind unused fire escape ladders.
Kidless fingers chafe-anticipation,
Not only for him,
But for the Mozart#39 that sings
in her sixteenth-floor apartment.
She passes the lamp post supported
by his nonchalant leaning
The post blue to match draping coat,
Black to match a lazy smile.
She refuses to notice, to embrace it.
Feet beat time to a Beethoven and the
warm pulse under a
soft, tasseled scarf as blue as -
He wears her blue but swatched with
of another colour
An innocent white that cries Irony.
She has forgotten the flute at Juliard
He has remembered his cached instrument.
Guided by my white, penetrating stare,
By his own,
Callous laughter escapes his blue pocket.
She raises her chin and soft curls
to trace a distant V of honking
geese flight, and
Shots of laughter silence the pulse,
Obliterate her music.
I watch but cannot watch,
Look but cannot see, as I
Taste a kiss that is bitter
In a silent world.