The skeleton in the studio of the lyric
soprano has no heart for singing now.
But still he listens. So the singing says.
Still she pours desire and its figures out,
noting, in turn, the droll arrangement,
attached to tissues that vanished long ago.
Mr. Bones, our prima donna calls him
and laughs, and still he hangs unaware
our sadness is a measure of his charm.
To be here and elsewhere like the last-
gasp aria he cannot hear, but still she calls.
Still she bares for him the inner singer.
Each day she pulls a hood from the cage,
and the finches inside it swell with joy.
