His lips are full, but to play he must fold them in,
make a tight line of those wet curves. It is shocking
to see them sprout out again when he finishes playing a long
note, takes a breath. The sound he produces is never thin
enough,
cannot express I am a lost nymph in the woods without adding,
a voluptuous nymph at that. He has tried to take the wink
out of his playing, read the most obscure books on the subject,
even one filled with circus metaphors: Think tightrope; but
he is
always down in the sawdust, slapping a seal, pinching the
plump
curves of an acrobat. The audience loves or hates him,
there is no in-between. Those who pick at their programs
wish his solo were over, others cross their legs thinking he
would only
have to look at a bundle of green twine and it would burst
into flower.
Both flute and clarinet become breathless in their attempts to
outdo him.
The conductor who approached the podium resolving to
rein him in
abandons his brisk baton strokes, succumbs to swaying.
And the oboist, who has been whispering his sins into that
dark
wooden tube hoping for absolution, flinches as the house lights
come up, hearing want echoed back in each footstamp, each
clap.

-Matthea Harvey