At the Chinese Opera

The room was saturated

            with percussion: the silvery knell

of bells and chimes, the leaden

gallop of drums, gongs.

How fervent! you said.

            I think it’s realigning my teeth!

I placed my finger in your mouth,

touched an incisor. I said, I think

it’s altered the rhythm of my heart.

            The opera was Summer Snow—

a young widow is executed

for another’s crime.

We watched her swing

            her long black ponytail

around and around,

keeping her executioners at bay,

and a shiver coursed down my arms

            as she sang in a desperate,

screeching falsetto. The swords

sliced through the windmill

of her hair. She clattered to the floor

            and all the drumming stopped.

Confucius believed sound affects

the harmony of the universe.

In that pronounced silence,

            we felt a stirring in our chests,

our very cells shifting, buzzing

like struck tuning forks.

My heart murmured for a moment,

            unsure of its rhythm. Finally

I coughed and it settled, and I prised

open my tight, clenched fists.