John Cages

David Groff

I click the vid, watch the guy arrive in applause,
bow, sit at the eminent piano, set a timer,
fold his hands in his lap with due deliberation,
sit back, straighten his face, and start
the droning gimmick of the show of silence.
I wonder what the young man thinks about his hair,
which like mine will further vanish microscopically
in the four-plus minutes he sits like a teacher’s pet
inching closer to death with no notes to show for it,
caught in the cage of someone else’s composition
as even real musicians are, the forsaken piano poised
for notes it would know if pianos know notes,
as people die outside, in still considerable numbers,
of COVID-19 which the composers of our state
could likely have cornered if they’d ever listened.
Beyond my humming monitor the city hums
in its guerilla growl. Sirens, subdued. One scream.
The muzzled city shouts the opposite of shelter.
It cries like a stadium, like a lonely ocean.
The young man and I have lost more hair
in our artifice of silence with its cagey roar.
I click ahead to minute four—I cheat, Time.

David Groff’s poetry collection Clay was chosen by Michael Waters for the Louise Bogan Award. His book Theory of Devolution \ was selected by Mark Doty for the National Poetry Series. An independent book editor, he teaches in the M.F.A. program at the City College of New York. @DavidGroff