b.z. niditch | playing satie

PLAYING SATIE

Sitting at the Steinway
with Satie’s
Gnossienne no.2
not knowing
the denouement
to my novel
or end -of- season studies
for the piano,
by murdered strudel
and ice cakes
and a mesh
of student goodbyes
both city and provincial
take my leave
for another sabbatical
retiring from my chair
by a solid brick dorm,
watching bluejays
from my blinds
along the river,
by sailfin mollies
in the fish tank,
a colleague
invited to table
of my generation
returns to dine
grabbing a blood orange,
tells me his mystery
in parables and poems
that he pretends
by his jaunty actions
I’ve suspected
by his melancholic mood
from his papers or ring,
and with irony’s favor
in a Jamesian manner
from a cosmopolitan life
tell him
his life is private
with a synoptic outline
of musical sorrows
I resume my Satie.

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