I never saw it, only heard
as he unbuckled the case to reveal 
my sister’s rental, 

that he played one
back in school.  The break
is an ellipsis, lifting 

the sound to the clarion 
range when you hit  
the register key, marked

by bones of silver
up the black horn’s back: 
my father’s hands 

stopped to find it, so the music,   
like sparrows, could vault
from guttural chatter

to flight.  He handed it over 
to my sister, smiling.  We didn’t know 
what was coming, none

of us, though I like to think
it was written somewhere
on old music tucked

in a case, coded
on a wrinkled score 
across lines of black ice: 

in thirty-five years
this man will go over
the break: new mustache

striking out the part 
of his face that made sense; 
the wrong socks; the hands 

picking the lock
to my mother’s room just
because; the smile 

that didn’t look anything
like a smile.  And his Nova nosing up
off the icy express

to leap
another workday’s   
gray rail—the damage

minimal, I guess, except 
he kept moving in and out 
of focus until, seasons on,

he shaved the mustache off
and his old mouth returned.  Surprise
looks like a mouth 

losing then regaining 
its embouchure.  For me
and my sister, then, he took

the clarinet back, gave us what   
we wanted: one more breath
in flight down the joints

from the barrel to the bell,
a handful of notes
we think we survived.

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