By Icess Fernandez Rojas

A woman sings through the walls and my ear picks up the melody.

Notes, long, stout, whole and half, dance in front of my eyes

Ascend and descend, rolling through rhythms

Like seductive snakes.

Pitch is perfect and black.

Dark like the part of my brain that stopped working.

Or the part that’s caged by change

On the breeze through the walls the melody hits.

Repetition against the drums in waves

From an ocean with no coast

And a beach with no sand.

A paradise found among sound

And an old flame at the base of forest fire

Hidden among quarter notes.

Disguised as movements.

Pianissimo.

Staccato.

Short. Shorter. Shortest.

Rest.

Cresendo to forte until the notes stand still.

And they will

When the Siren stops.