My Body is Sound by Katherine Sotol
Hoping to sound my faultless lungs,
Maestro looks to the floor
And says, “From your diaphragm. Breathe deeply.”
In medias res, I sing one pure note,
The minor third.
He brings his head up sharply.
In the same breath, I add the overtone,
The perfect fifth.
His eyes widen in surprise.
Still in the same breath, I bring in the low root,
The minor triad.
He is enchanted.
And so, like all the others,
Heeds the song,
And succumbs.
The mediant quickens and purely breaks
His beating heart.
He has never fully felt the thrumming tempo.
The perfectly pitched overtone shatters
His every bone.
He has never dared this appassionato.
The fundamental note plumbs and ruptures
His faulty lungs.
He has never fathomed these bottomless measures.
Shrouded in a rhapsody of the never safe,
But always sound,
He dies ecstatic.