A piano, a bus, and a blue-stained urinal are percussion instruments. So glad butterflies are not pianos.
If your eyes are bothering you, you can listen to Larry read his poem:
Larry Duncan
After Midnight Melancholia XI
Silence eats light.
It eats everything:
the veil of night,
the railroad cars,
your stubborn smile.
The corner pane
alive in red pulse
like blood pumped
chamber to chamber,
from chest to limb.
Otherwise, the window
sleeps three-quarters dark.
We open our thighs
an inch and the world
speaks butterflies,
a tremble of wings,
stirred by steam,
bar the crossing.
That year I left
Chicago was one
Long bus ride:
razors on the windshield,
blue stain in the urinals,
the ache of broken teeth.
But when the trees
hold their leaves
and the traffic learns
a common tongue,
I bend my ear
to the meat of things,
lay my tickets on the table
and count daggers in my offering:
the naked lamb,
a broken thumb,
my mother’s linen on the line,
her auburn hair
