Music Box Madrigal

A wrist of sticks cut, thrust in water
to force the sweet crease of cherry flosses
& then forgotten now thickens with fur-dross,
greeny on the windowsill through which a neighbor’s

radio pines in Friday-night nostalgia
to the tune of a six-pack of something.
An old story, Romance: On such an Evening,
the Light, &c.—unhinged by sudden thaw,

the wind dovetailing through strappy trees
its clair, its eyeblink—brings to the darkened
space of a fisted ribcage a fresh chance.
Lift the lid, unbend the stiff, sprung figure

of speech within, tutu spread like the spirit’s bloom
ringing body’s vase with the snowy ropes of freedom.