Highnotes

Allen C. Fischer

Liebestraum! Liebestod.
Love pitches between the swells
of a foreign language, alternately
soaring one way and sinking another,
overcome in a seasickness of emotion.
Little mention given to boredom
or attrition or to the everyday chorus
of living. No expense of time. No trade.
Entranced, love espouses itself
as poetry's bellman or music's messenger
with all the colors of every rainbow
and all the sounds of symphony.
From there, it is one small step.
Love reaches for eternity . . . across time,
the distance between two people
and into an astrology of highnotes,
hands full, heart racing to keep up,
the body an aging tenant of some other
need. For that moment. Ad infinitum.