By Charles M. Sumid     Copyright 2025     Written 2001

The houselights dim.

Exit signs punctuate darkness.
Coughs settle like birds.

The conductor raises his baton.

First movement.
Strings saw open something in the air.
The woman beside me closes her eyes,
sways in weather
only she can feel.

The timpani sounds.
We sit still
while something moves through us.

I taste metal.
Salt.
Distance.

Between movements,
the silence holds more
than silence should.

The oboe calls.
A child three rows up
reaches for something
none of us can see.

His mother doesn’t stop him.

Third movement.
The cellos breathe.
An old couple in the balcony
move their hands together,
dancing while seated,
remembering or becoming.

Finale.
Brass declares.
Sound builds its own geometry
we feel but cannot name.
The air thickens,
thins,
breaks.

The conductor’s arms fall.

We applaud slowly at first,
still dizzy
from wherever we’ve been.

Outside, the city waits.
In the lobby, a stranger
describes the storm movement.
Her hands still shape wind.

By the parking garage,
we’re almost ourselves again.
Almost.

Something follows us home.
Not the music.
The spaces between.