Melissa Chen (Epsom Girls Grammar School, Auckland)
Reprise
yesterday (fine)
do you remember summer days
blazing sforzandos when you pushed me higher
always & told me you liked glissandos
i turned from the sky and watched you
waving on the ground happily
& winter lead you by the hand away
you were lost in the morning fog
but you called it love &
drew hearts on opaque glass
they bled but you laughed
later you cried i heard your tears staccato
fall your cheek pressed against
the window pane matching raindrops
outside you sospirando in the dark
the piano in e minor for
forty days and forty nights
beneath floorboards in your room
a gold laced book
on sun-stained pages in cobweb ink
a requiem unnamed
now the birds sing a capellas but
you are deaf & twice disgraced
on the window
not rain nor frost but
bleeding hearts rhapsodies &
fingerprints
on white piano keys thin black islands
& dust middle c untouched
(Da Capo al fine)
