PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRINCESS

Katherine Fallon

Wrist so straight          at the neck of the viola

you forget              you even have a joint.

You will excel.

You love the permanent hickey the chin rest leaves

passable as a strawberry birthmark

love watching resin dust snow past the bridge

how     because you don’t clean it

it dulls like hairspray.

You fake your practice record            spectacularly

& they can’t question you:     your mother signed off on it

blind             & you are first row.

You get so good          at that throaty vibrato

                     peer through the F holes at the sound post

hold your breath

out of respect for the chamber                        as it hums

itself to sleep.                          You do all this for years

but only so many.                   Once you start something

you can’t stop.             Unless you are very good at it.