Between the visits to the shock ward <br />The doctors used to let you play <br />On the old upright Baldwin <br />Donated by a former patient <br />Who is said to be quite stable now. <br /> <br />And all day long you played Chopin, <br />Badly and hauntingly, when you weren't <br />Screaming on the porch that looked <br />Like an enormous birdcage. Or sat <br />In your room and stared out at the sky. <br /> <br />You never looked at me at all. <br />I used to walk down to where the bus stopped <br />Over the hill where the eucalyptus trees <br />Moved in the fog, and stared down <br />At the lights coming on, in the white rooms. <br /> <br />And always, when I came back to my sister's <br />I used to get out the records you made <br />The year before all your terrible trouble, <br />The records the critics praised and nobody bought <br />That are almost worn out now. <br /> <br />Now, sometimes I wake in the night <br />And hear the sound of dead leaves <br />against the shutters. And then a distant <br />Music starts, a music out of an abyss, <br />And it is dawn before I sleep again.<br /><br />Weldon Kees<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-musician-s-wife/
