Music Box Advancing

I listened in,
with the wood growing warmer
beneath my ear
and the framework kindling,
and the eaves crashing down,
upon a music box.

I listened in.
I didn’t fall in love.
But when my feet were still
black with the ashes,
it was rebirthed as well,
remixed through the soot—
and within one summer night
I found my ear
against a heat its own
differently cadenced,
only a few
of the rich constellations of nudges
slowly pinging
through two deep sets of stiff heartstrings.

These notes fall
with shavings of ice
trapped in separate snowglobes,
twirling out seconds separate,
with the glitter of dolce
and the sour of rallentando,
lento—
But move me and I’ll dance with ice again—
wind me up and I will sing for you.