Admit Darius by Anne Archer

GOODMORNINGANNEARCHERHOWAREYOUTODAY?
Darius leans into the camera, erupts
into our room, that space
beyond the screen,
his words zoom, slide, slur,
collide, tumble like notes,
tones and semi-tones, colours
to finger and tongue:
D Major,
all gold and sunshine,
the piazza in Florence
where he ate crostata
with his mother and sister
stalked pigeons while
Sofia talked con passione
about her boyfriend, her new job
or C, green
as home, Dobruja green
the Carpathians in May,
folk tunes
Darius teaches me
turning the tables,
improvisando
he watches me fumble
and trip on the dotted eighths
his arms and legs jigging
at this absurdity, our joke.
So baroque, he is master
of the minuets in G,
loves the 1,2,3,
4& of a bouree,
is Jethro Tull tilting
the E minor,
knows by heart
Anna Magdalena’s Notebook,
Bach’s highstepping suites,
all taps and trills and show.
Sees pattern everywhere
except for the slow,
unpredictable adagios, deaf
to the call of a rallentando
or a melody that stretches
and curls, rubato,
a cat on the couch.
He plays pokemon
among the notes
and rests, hides
in plain sight
Peek-a-Boo!
upsidedown
on the 4th line
of the staff, oh
Darius, you scamp,
you sly, silly lad.
End Meeting For All
Anne Archer is a musician and re-emerging poet who is inventing herself. Among her 2021 publications are three poems from her sequence, 'For the Birds,' in Entropy Magazine (11 January 2021) and , under the name Archer Lundy, 'Danby Lake' in The Eunoia Review (20 May 2021)