The cellist admitted to experiencing a sense of bewilderment in the presence of sheet music. As the small black notes curve and twist, scurrying like beetles across a clean white page, only the conductor's bobbing hand seems legible. Yet he soon discovered that any concerto may be navigated with a compass, its slim metal hands whirling under dim chandeliers. On the night of his last performance, the song's highest note became its northernmost when the scale ascended, a strange bird rising in the dark blue hall. The audience was startled by the intentionality of the music, its sudden attainment of a clear direction.
Kristina Marie Darling is a graduate of Washington University. She is the author of eight chapbooks of poetry and prose, including Fevers and Clocks and The Traffic in Women. Her writing appears in The Boston Review, The Colorado Review, New Letters, The Literary Review, and other journals. Recent awards include residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Centrum Foundation.
