Sally Zakariya

 Piano Man 

  
 It’s always dusk when I hear him
 through the open window. He plays
 a swaying melody, lyrical flights 
 with a darker underpinning of dissonant 
 harmonies.
  
 Drawn to the music, two mockingbirds
 alight on the wire tonight, sidestep 
 close and closer, a dance of approaching, 
 their liquid vocal cadences mimicking 
 the piano note for note.
  
 Man and bird in cross-species duet,
 a singular and almost inexplicable
 phenomenon. I listen, imagining
 an unknown other, a whole spectrum
 of others, all joined in something like
 ecstasy, feeling the presence of a 
 common truth.
  
 Surely we can prevail together.
 I picture a warm circle of light
 shimmering on our act of gentle 
 defiance against a world awry, 
 a world in need of song … 
 and trust. 

Copyright 2021 by Sally Zakariya

Sources:

“He Was Born into Slavery, but Achieved Musical Stardom”

“What It’s Like When You Escape” and “A Brief History of Attraction,” When You Escape, Five Oaks Press, 2016

Bio

Sally Zakariya’s poetry has appeared in some 75 print and online journals and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her most recent publication is Muslim Wife (Blue Lyra Press, 2019). She is also the author of The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, When You Escape, Insectomania, and Arithmetic and other verses, as well as the editor of a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table. Zakariya blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com. 

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