"Rubato"

"Rubato" comes from Italian, and is used as a musical term to roughly mean "robbed time." It's something felt, rarely written; regardless of time signature, regardless of notation, you steal the space in between the notes to create another dimension there. The listener suspends her breath. 

Rubato

One wandering eye flits

to tepid milk sitting out. I’d

forgotten. He is in it, as he is in

every vaporous toccata whirling

lost inside the radio. Questionnez,

rubato. I cannot tell which eye is my

enemy. I eye with love, with loathing,

any tool to scoop it out. But which simply

sees? Which connects dizzyingly out of a grab

bag of images, its open-mouth socket a noiseless vacuum?

 

1. The other in bed sings as if

underwater.

12. A house clicks

and shudders in southeast wind.

 

5. Long curtain shadows twitch

in powdered light.

 

 

With each forced closure, I lose

a whole dimension.