Mudlark Flash No. 86 (2014)
Luisa Muradyan
Kiev, 2013
Poem for the Man Playing the Piano
in Front of the Wall of Police
What was the song your mother would hum? da de du da, de du da de dandelions falling out of her hair a cup of tea spilling on the hem of her dress. She once took you to the zoo in Odessa and you watched an elephant paint a picture of an elephant and everyone laughed but you stood there in your silence. When they told you the storm was over in the middle of the storm did your clothes begin to stain or did the melody change? What does rain sound like on a violin? You hear it now. And just last week lightning struck Christ the Redeemer and the papers exploded with proclamations of the end or was it the beginning? If your fingers break can you still cup your hands into the shape of a prayer? It was how your mother taught you God speaks silently, that when Babel fell silence was the answer or was it the music? You sit here on your piano stool in front of the wall of police, silence erupting all around you, closer to God than you’d ever dreamed.
Luisa Muradyan is originally from Ukraine and is currently teaching English at Kansas State University. Her work has previously appeared in Ninth Letter, PANK, A-Minor, Camroc Press Review, Anderbo, and Neon Literary Magazine.