Gerard Grealish

A violinist
                          her jaw fused
with a Stradivarius her wrist
bending in trigonometric
function
                     carves
out of strings a scream
like last eveningʼs

that awakened me
from a book.

The snap of the trap the simultaneous
shriek took me to a further
depth the memory of
quivering jowls
bristling whiskers.

You cannot have cleanliness
without emptiness.
Somewhere between the small world
of living and the large one of death
is the dying. The squeak of it
is the violinist blurring her bow
like Valkyrie wings.