Jealous Instruments

JALOUSIES
Hsia Yü​

When the wind blows the jalousies drone like a pump organ
The sea by the shore is like a crime you are reluctant to commit
When the wind blows basking in the sun is like an egg
About to burst its shell
All that remains is to finish filling the pages in this notebook
Then practice a new instrument called the bag-pipe
On account of the wind slipping through the hollows of my knees on account of that fellow
He is a word I accidentally stumbled on
While looking for another word so
Some things are no different than taking a piano in the middle of a concert
And the pianist and hurling them both at high velocity to the bottom of the sea
Not yet conscious of what has happened they continue on the ocean floor
And someone with amnesia sitting on the shore hears the music welling up
Evoking the memory of those stop-tuberculosis stamps they used to sell in school
So the words we stumble on begin to take over but strangely enough
We never mistake one kiss for another
We mistake our luggage 
Upon opening the suitcase I discovered the book the man was reading
The last 3 pages of was mine
So then what happened next?
This man who’d mistaken my luggage for his knew how everything turned out before I did
His clothes had the smell of travel and a rumpled look
Out fell a ticket stub from a far-away city
He’d gone to see a film by himself
He had a bag-pipe too
The air flowing through it darted between my nape and collar
In a flash he took the book I’d been reading
He took the last ten pages I’d not yet read
And tore them to shreds he closed the book
He took my suitcase and gave it back to me

from Hsia Yü's Salsa
recommended by Elizabeth Doran at Grolier's

INSTRUMENTS OF MY CHILDHOOD
​Adam Stone

Before i could choose the piano My mother 
stereotyped me the flute Only a broken arm
released me from band practice where i was the
only boy The trumpet too took too much 
wind from me These were the instruments of my
cousins And so free though we could soon
afford the piano without their help My first car my mother
joked Though the first piano was
donated by a neighbor whose kids tired of it but who himself
concerted it from the back of my father's
pickup truck down the steep hill
between the house built just for us and the
second house built just for us when my parents
grew exhausted of the shape of the first

I buried the flute expecting all of my
desire to lip and finger that shape to
die with it And i’m sure it probably
bloomed into some ridiculous
pink flower while i wasn’t
watching but i was most afraid it would
interrupt the mower when my father 
trimmed the not just lawn but 
the barely woods that
shaded us from the neighbors i desired

I put the trumpet in the same black
case all the brass students owned and
willed it stolen

The piano survived into my almost
thirties Sold by a former roommate The money
split for security on a new apartment

I wonder the lips of the trumpet thief
Also now nearing four times the age of the
act of theft Maybe with a child who will
hate it as much as i did Or did the memory of my lips
taunt him to piano too

Who ungraved the flute Or is still buried
treasure Curious garden antique Did it
chip under shovel Will it ever again
wheeze under an inadequate mouth?