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Reginald Gibbons

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The Flaw

This melody, escaping by deft
evasion the music’s sinking weight,
rises buoyed through the flute
into air, and at the highest pitch

Kinkaid, in one recording, deliberately —
where a lesser musician might in fact
have faltered — breaks it for an instant,
splitting the note. Then falling,

the fluttering part rejoins
the slow train of chords beneath it.
There can be no explanation but
a virtuoso’s distaste for perfection.

And dark paint swathes this bowl
in patterns squared, doubled on themselves,
immaculately filled with ochre
and bare space. A minute gap

left by the brush breaks the three lines
that circle the rim: the spirit
residing here must be allowed
release — if it is penned within,

wandering through perfect repetitions
it will anger and burst the clay,
cursing its Cochiti maker as it seeks
its freedom.

There was never flesh without some flaw
nor flaw wholly beyond affection.
But I have come to know your face
so well I almost forget it:

smooth brow, brown eyes, the delicacy
of your wrists there too in nose and chin,
and the dark star where chip
was broken from tooth in childhood.

There was never flaw that was not
the glyph of some spirited form.
And balanced against it, all remaining beauty.

 

Page(s) 40-41

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