Claudia Serea
The clarinet
When my grandfather walked into the room,
shorter and much older
than I remembered him,
playing the clarinet
with a group of musicians,
I was cooking six large mums
in a sweet and sour heart sauce.
I couldn’t see their faces
obscured by their woodwind
and brass instruments,
fat saxophones,
oboes, and duduks,
trumpets, trombones, and tubas,
gleaming like gold teeth.
When did you learn to play the clarinet?
I asked,
but he didn’t answer.
I served him the mums
and the bleeding hearts
and went outside to hang
silhouettes of unborn children
on the clothesline.
It was early spring,
freezing and raw.
My grandfather and the musicians
played their wind instruments
at the funeral of the century
and walked slowly over the hill
behind the truck with the coffins
until they disappeared.
Only the clarinet kept wailing
in the cold wind.
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