Poetry – John DesCamp

Still in the Orchestra

There’s not much left of the song
but I tilt my head and listen
greedy for what’s left

Sunset in San Miguel
a blind hummingbird vibrates urgently
against the rough plaster of my bedroom wall

Grandmother cared for my mother
and for my mother’s cousins, who were orphaned
and my mother took care of me

This Sunday morning’s made so fine
it makes me resent both
my mortality
and the deliberate speed of light.

One foot in each world?
I have them in a hundred worlds

He can’t sign his name anymore
hands shake an up-tempo rhythm
like some damned digital drum kit
that you can’t find the switch to turn it off

I have never owned my life
—it’s all on loan from the Universe anyway

A raindrop on my window, then another
they touch and merge so easily

No words
no combinations of words
no ideas—no thoughts at all