by Jennifer van Alstyne

Yuri sits on mahogany bench & runs fingers
Across keyboard, tests A-minor tri-tone
Before Handel’s Overture is hammered on strings –
Quite different from its notated pluckings.

Frowns wrinkle his forehead in concentration
& he disappears into August dusk.
Between the two of us –his fingers,
My natural inclination to hum to whatever

I might hear –Gould becomes us, & we him.
As the crickets keep our time, our natural heartbeat,
I can see him across from me. Hat low, Gould
Sits on an antique sofa, legs crossed, & smiles.

Jennifer van Alstyne is a Peruvian-American poet and scholar. She has been published numerous journals including COG, Crack the Spine, ELKE, The Foundling Review, Paper Nautilus, The Yellow Chair Review, Stonecoast Review, Sweet Tree Review, and Whiskey Traveler. Her chapbook, Pelt, was a finalist for the Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Award and for The Comstock Writers Group Chapbook Contest. She holds an M.F.A. from Naropa University where she was the Jack Kerouac Fellow and is currently a graduate fellow in English Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.