← v7n1, Spring 2008
Poetry · Volume 7, Number 1

Practice Rooms

Plastic cubicles line the long fluorescent

hallway—clear cells hardened into soundlessness;

each contains a piano‚ metronome‚ one girl.

The isolations partial by design‚

the proctor watches hands obey prescribed

measures‚ a body’s particular sway‚ head

moving in concentration—music immured behind

the pierced lobe‚ sculpted whorl of auricle‚ the temporal bone.