Two Poems

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
...