Kitchen Muse

The screen door is open.
A breeze wafts to the kitchen.

Almost bedtime.

When the music ends
we go upstairs, but first
Toscanini must finish conducting
the Emperor Concerto
through its alternating measures
of majesty and understatement.

Daddy likes that movement
toward the end, where violins
whisper insistently and keys
meander like petals falling

until the pace quickens,
and low crisp notes
scurry across the board,
roll out from the dining room.

Daddy, it sounds like mice.

We watch the night flesh
into black. Wind rattles.
The neighbor's dog barks.
Music plays.

Chavi, write how it sounds.

So I do.
And I do.
And I do.