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

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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)