Aria

by Niamh Corcoran

Make room! Give way! His hurried command

as he wheels the handed-down, no longer played

piano out to fallow and fall with sand

box, tire swing, pony cart. Graveyard masquerade.

Then the sound of wood resisting the shallow

strike of my father’s ax, his labored breathing,

before cutting deep into the marrow.

What to make of such bodies of ruin.

Months untouched, the timber, action and innards

slump against the stump where the maple was.

Nothing moves the sounding board. Then the birds,

flitting feathers, hollow bones, begin to pass

and land, talons picking the still wires,

aria of encounters, departures.

Niamh Corcoran is the recipient of an Individual Artist Award in Poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council. Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Third Coast, Magma (UK), Ekphrasis, Dogwood and other publications.