a score

twelve staves on cream paper. the title, in a careful hand: andantino — for piano. there is no opus number; there is a space for one. the date, in the upper right, has been crossed out twice and left at the third crossing.

the first system is in ink — confident, looped, the work of someone who has written music many times. by the third system the ink has thinned and the notes are slower to commit. on the fourth and last system there is one pencilled crotchet and, a hand's-breadth later, a question mark. the bar lines stop. there are no rests filled in. the piece is not finished. the piece will not be finished.

the composer was the same person who tuned the piano badly and who chose the harpist's harp. they put the score back on the music desk one evening intending to come back to it. they did not come back. the room held the score as it holds everything — patiently, without expectation, the way the library holds an unread book.

field-note: a tea-ring in the upper left corner. one corner dog-eared. graphite smudged where a left hand rested.

the piano · the metronome · word · lacuna · palimpsest