AnJ}ela L . .ijanflin.s 

Deuotinn 
I watched you make his sandwich­
calm, patient, steadfast. 
He was talking to me about Vietnam 

for the first time in my life. 
I was trying to listen but 
I couldn't stop watching you. 

A breeze was blowing in off the lake but 
he didn't realize that it was summer. 
The curtains you had sewed, back when 

the nights were filled with simple 
dinners and watching Cops, swelled 
up off the window pane, then sighed 

down in exhaustion. You glanced at his 
arms, chilled, and quietly shut the window. 
I watched as you served him lunch, 

as you turned up the volume on the tv, 
then as you turned it back down again. 
I watched you as you rubbed the lotion 

on his legs as if each careful caress 
could attenuate his illness. 
I thought of how deep the fracture 

of what you have lost. How woven 
the recollections with the new suffering. 
The sun was beginning to dim in 

the late afternoon, flickering through 
the window, wavering, like his memory. 
I thought of what Robert Frost's 

words said about devotion, and how in 
this moment, these days ... weeks .. . months ... 
you were his wave, his devotion. 

24 

l{ir.stin Durfe.!J 

Black anb IuorJl l{ep 
My teacher, a Chinese lady with t 

and piano can not be friends. Six years 
about this monumental sacrifice. But 
nails, sit at the piano and start to plun 

Legs swing under the piano bend 
My mom comes by, bobbing her head 
in the sizzling pink dress in the right 1 

Slipping away from running mu 
from spaghetti noodles boiling on th< 
down from forty-five in the corner of 
back to the piano bench and keep pre 
zart's Sonatina in C. My nose is wrin1 
tortoise-learning a new piece such p 
smile is on my face for my fingers run 
so fun and easy. 

I sit on a swing, gliding through t] 
stretch toward the crisp spring sky. l\ 

air and I stick my toes into the ground 
sit down with a thud and speed thro1 
tice "Reverie;' and I forget the swing. 
sound of the sweet melody rising in tl 

The winter sun hits me through 
its rays through coats and hats and glc 
Mozart are my friends at twelve, as rn 

melodious passages, turning them int 
My blonde German teacher Ann 

of love:' composed by Liszt. My eyes, 1 

notes that make pages look like black1 
with colorful fish and seaweed I have 
transparent beauty. 

The quiet college practice room 
see carpet stains and gray Styrofoam 
practice on the pianos that seem to l 
I nurture a Scriabin etude that begin: 
into hurricane middle, ending with a 

Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C 1 

semester number two. "Bach is like 1 

2: