Dancing to Beethoven

I heard fireworks on an April evening.

I looked but couldn’t see where they were.

It was twilight, the sky full of vermillion clouds,

Nothing more.

I heard the sounds of fireworks.

They might have been real.

 

I went home and put on a record

And danced to the music of Beethoven.

The light from a table lamp shaped like a pear

Shone on a book of matches that lay unopened.

The lamp’s yellow shade was cocked like a hat.

It had a worn spot on one side

That glowed a little brighter,

Like a nearly invisible eye.

 

My tongue sour with beer,

I went to bed tired but not enough to sleep.

I lay next to the propped-open window,

The light from yellow streetlamps in my eyes,

Open but not seeing anything, even shadows.

I listened for fireworks,

Which might have been real,

Thinking words that could have been this poem,

If I’d written them down in the morning.

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