1809

He adjusts the grey and hits a minor key
ten times with the stub of his
left index finger,

keeping the sound distant and
facile and
dismembered like smoke from his lips.

A plaintive melody moves on the air, lapping up the walls,
in essence of
caprice and vision.

The deaf phantom ducks his head,
with aid of his silver crutch,
to the auditorium

bountiful with passion and luster and light.  
He pens a label and an alias above the notes,
and watches them lose themselves in embers.

Another exhausted devil
retires to oblivion through the stage exit,
back onto the flames of Drury Lane.