rosined split ended horse

-hairs pressed against the wound

gut — only a chip of calcium carbonate

on black soot cracks —

the envelope of space sealed

tightly broken by the arrow of a B

flat minor — the motif of hopeful water’s vaporous ascension

cut mid-way between the sky and puddle —

. the technology of violin string friction

dominoing into molecule, molecule, molecule,

drum.

Wiesenfeld only samples an instance;

the turn is difficult to bear. Chopin transcribed it.

To study that piece Engerer followed the rain

splatterings with her fingers,

first on the floor, then on the ivory

in the shower his sheet music’s transcription

retold water’s rise and fall.

The piano is a drum

whose hammers are cotton-coated.

Feet in the rain first pat the puddle

before the concrete — that! Or how

the middle finger skids down the thumb

before snapping on the palm:

each inch is a frictive surface the arrowhead of sound transcends the saran wrap of

compounded distance to arc dolphinesque in the ear of the hearer.

Cylindrical (for aerodynamic fluidity)

hickory (for solidity)

sticks nubbed with thermoplastic (for low friction stiffness)

snap at the snare suspended above taut chains.