Clyde Kessler
Harmonica
After the earthquake, the evening became a crippled woman
playing harmonica behind a broken wall, the music shook
into the stars, and made her the double of somebody collapsing.
The sun was noon crazy before, then it stole the house away.
The evening followed across the basement, found things
shivering through quince and hedge beside a green car
flipped on its side. She laughed into the silver harmonica
and the music groaned like a horned owl deep among the pines.
Eleven aftershocks shuffled quickly against her,
she breathed their music into the earth, laughing more
like a wingless moth shaking the air away.
Then the harmonica left her songs purling against the stars.