What a lustrous text
the violin has become.

The poem need barely be written.
(The violin has barely been played.)

Compact and superbly lit,
it is a lovely thing
and we must still call it
an instrument.

Every day the violin supplies
all possible permutations of
silence to the gallery.

It issues silence like a nectar
and we falter then drink it in.

Arrested and set alive,
violin words are human words:
neck, ribs, eyes, back.

Whatever is a person
to make of themselves
before this gloss, these fraught,
immaculate joints.

The violin is a perfect
body of sensation,
shut up:

the violin is telling a joke
and we are not
listening to it
very hard.