La Femme a la Guitare

My hand is the hand of a woman
in a cubist painting,
la femme a la guitare,
an encrypted shape
groping for the strings
that are now a part of it.

The music is all modern jazz
and bumping off the air’s
serrated edges.

Where is the faithful, round
pluck of the guitar?
the hand’s dance
weaving itself into sound.

The music is now a ribbon
in the gut
around the thigh,
pulled through the ancle.

To dig or scrape,
obsolete.
Instead the hand
must learn a new way
of moving,
a new articulation
bending sound,
and blurting a backward call.

*A poem from 05