Sequester Sonnet

This is a time of talking to oneself
or overhearing Rostropovich “talk” Bach.
You play it for yourself, he says of the second
suite for cello, its sarabande the saddest
movement of all. You could, instead, sing
to your speaker Duruflé’s “Ubi Caritas,”
that choral celebration of congregating
as one. Here’s a recording by one man alone
who laid down each voice part — bass, tenor,
and yes, alto and soprano too — with no
super-spreader choir to sing of charity, belonging,
and the lovely word amor. Nevertheless, 
you can hear Rostropovich, Bach, Duruflé, that singer,
and now, joining them all, the voice of longing.

ξ

Quake

The bed with the view is the dangerous one.
The predictable drum in the dryer
has tangled our legs and sleeves once more.
Let’s bring down high things, get
rid of those clothes, clear our headboard
of books that aren’t to die for.
It’s time to take rubbings of you, lie low
here buffed every night, and hang our view
high, everywhere.
Do you think we won’t survive?
A binary unit’s too small?
John Donne’s flea
is alive in its four-
hundredth year, and
thanks to Donne and More,
it’s living well
on paper that doesn’t seem to corrode
the two drops, mingled, of their blood.

ξ

Muriel Nelson’s publications include Part Song (Bear Star Press, Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize), Most Wanted (ByLine Press, ByLine Chapbook Award), and Please Hold (Encircle Publications, Poetry Chapbook Award). Her book Sightsinger is forthcoming from Encircle in September. Nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize, Nelson’s poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Bloom, Guesthouse, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hunger Mountain, New American Writing, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, and other journals as well as in several anthologies. Two of her poems have been set to music. Among her prose publications are a book review (Cider Press Review), mini book review (Prairie Schooner blog), literary blog contributions (Superstition Review, Sonora Review, Beloit Poetry Journal Forum, and Editions Bibliotekos), and a critical essay (Italian Culture). She holds master's degrees from the University of Illinois School of Music and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and lives in Federal Way, Washington.