Nussbaum
By Askold Skalsky



Schumann’s tree—remember it?
The arpeggiated murmurs in E ♭
made us hope for something
like it, with pink bonbons
on arbor trays haled from the
18 th century where barren
naves whitened in dark forests,
and the mills crumbled winsomely
by mossy streams. No one trusted

the lyrics anyway. When she sang
in the half-filled hall (best crowd ever,
she told us), the chandeliers themselves
crowned her Queen of Lieder, though
a bit plumper around the middle
after one more season. I brought
the encore back under my breath,
arguing about our postlapsarian state
all the way up the hilly streets
of Braddock Heights, lined
with walnut trees and coarse bungalows
leaning beside cracked curbs.

On my midnight walk I could see
you by the second floor window,
reading in the lamplight, close
to the crib in the adjacent room
that damped the rages I spun out
under those patient leaves grazing
the porch where we transposed
the evening air into a minor key.

Fool, you cried, you’re
destroying all we have.

I sulked and pushed
the replay button
on the phonograph,
then told myself everything
was already in ruins.

Askold Skalsky teaches at Hagerstown Community College in western Maryland and has had poems in numerous small press magazines and journals, most recently in Blue Fifth Review and The Dos Passos Review. He has also published in Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain. Earlier this year he received a prize for his poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council.

© 2009 prickofthespindle.com