My heart aches, and the same drowsy song begins
Ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum. Tree empties itself
into my beak. Tells me how people turn
into other things. Somewhere in this understory
she stops to listen for the songs I never got to sing.
She hopes to hear, in the dim acoustics of this forest,
my melodious plot. My tin trumpet,
my kent, and kint saying Give it up! Give it up!
You won’t find me! You’ll never trace the timbre
of my meaning, it’s written in a script too old for
tongues. And you’ll never have enough paper to tell it.
That music is fled, and soon I will fly too.
Anastasios Mihalopoulos is a Greek/Italian writer living in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He received his MFA in poetry from the Northeast Ohio M.F.A. program and his B.S. in both Chemistry and English from Allegheny College. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Scientific American, Ninth Letter, Fairy Tale Review, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of New Brunswick.
